The Wilderness Years

"A curse on you when you come in, and a curse on you when you go out.

"ADONAI will send on you curses, disasters and frustration in everything you set out to do, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of your evil actions in abandoning me.

"ADONAI will bring on you a plague that will stay with you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.

ADONAI will strike you down with wasting diseases, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, drought, blasting winds and mildew; and they will pursue you until you perish.

"The sky over your head will be brass and the earth under you iron.

ADONAI will turn the rain your land needs into powder and dust that will fall on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

"ADONAI your God will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will advance on them one way and flee before them seven. You will become an object of horror to every kingdom on earth.

Your carcasses will become food for all the birds in the air and the wild animals, and there will be no one to scare them away.

ADONAI will strike you down with the boils that broke out on the Egyptians, tumors, skin lesions and itching, all incurable.

ADONAI will strike you with insanity, blindness and utter confusion.

You will grope about at noon like a blind person groping in the dark, unable to find your way. "You will be continually oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to save you.

You will get engaged to a woman, but another man will marry her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you won't eat any of its meat. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force as you watch, and you won't get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to help you.

Your sons and daughters will be handed over to another people; you will watch for them longingly all day but not see them; and there will be nothing you can do about it.

A nation unknown to you will eat the fruit of your land and labor. Yes, you will be continually oppressed and crushed,

till you go crazy from what your eyes have to see.

ADONAI will strike you down in the knees and legs with painful and incurable boils; they will spread from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

ADONAI will bring you and your king whom you have put over yourselves to a nation you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors; and there you will serve other gods made of wood and stone.

You will be so devastated as to become a proverb and a laughingstock among all the peoples to which ADONAI will drive you.

"You will carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, because locusts will devour it.

You will plant vineyards and dress them but neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

You will have olive trees throughout your territory but not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will fall off unripe.

You will father sons and daughters, but they won't belong to you, because they will go into captivity.

The bugs will inherit all your trees and the produce of your land.

"The foreigner living with you will rise higher and higher while you sink lower and lower.