Joshua 23:15

¹⁵But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. ¹⁶You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. ¹⁷Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. ¹⁸The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed. ¹⁹You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out. ²⁰The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. ²¹The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. ²²The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish. ²³Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. ²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed. ²⁵The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. ²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart. ²⁹You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you. ³⁰You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. ³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. ³³A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, ³⁴so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. ³⁵The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. ³⁸You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. ⁴²Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³The foreigner who is among you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. ⁴⁶They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever. ⁴⁷Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; ⁴⁸therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵²They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. ⁵⁴The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, ⁵⁵so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, ⁵⁷toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. ⁵⁸If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD^[+] your God, ⁵⁹then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. ⁶⁰He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. ⁶¹Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed. ⁶²You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice. ⁶³It will happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess. ⁶⁴The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul. ⁶⁶Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see. ⁶⁸The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

¹The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

⁶The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned the LORD, and didn’t serve him. ⁷The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the children of Ammon.

¹The children of Israel did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, so the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

¹The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, when Ehud was dead. ²The LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

¹⁶forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.

⁸Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim eight years.

¹⁴“‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, ¹⁶I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.

¹⁸“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. ²⁰Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

²¹“‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. ²²I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

²³“‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, ²⁴then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. ²⁵I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

²⁷“‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. ²⁹You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. ³¹I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. ³²I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it. ³³I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. ³⁴Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

³⁶“‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

⁴⁰“‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, ⁴¹I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, ⁴²then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. ⁴³The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.’”

⁴⁶These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.

²²For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. ²³Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath to this people. ²⁴They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

¹⁶but they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the LORD’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

¹⁷Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm. He gave them all into his hand.