The Wilderness Years

Cursed shalt thou be coming in, and cursed going out.

The Lord shall send upon thee famine and hunger, and a rebuke upon all the works which thou shalt do: until he consume and destroy thee quickly, for thy most wicked inventions, by which thou hast forsaken me.

May the Lord set the pestilence upon thee, until he consume thee out of the land, which thou shalt go in to possess.

May the Lord afflict thee with miserable want, with the fever and with cold, with burning and with heat, and with corrupted air and with blasting, and pursue thee till thou perish.

Be the heaven, that is over thee, of brass: and the ground thou treadest on, of iron.

The Lord give thee dust for rain upon thy land, and let ashes come down from heaven upon thee, till thou be consumed.

The Lord make thee to fall down before thy enemies, one way mayst thou go out against them, and flee seven ways, and be scattered throughout all the kingdoms of the earth.

And be thy carcass meat for all the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, and be there none to drive them away.

The Lord strike thee with the ulcer of Egypt, and the part of thy body, by which the dung is cast out, with the scab and with the itch: so that thou canst not be healed.

The Lord strike thee with madness and blindness and fury of mind.

And mayst thou grope at midday as the blind is wont to grope in the dark, and not make straight thy ways. And mayst thou at all times suffer wrong, and be oppressed with violence, and mayst thou have no one to deliver thee.

Mayst thou take a wife, and another sleep with her. Mayst thou build a house, and not dwell therein. Mayest thou plant a vineyard and not gather the vintage thereof.

May thy ox be slain before thee, and thou not eat thereof. May thy ass be taken away in thy sight, and not restored to thee. May thy sheep be given to thy enemies, and may there be none to help thee.

May thy sons and thy daughters be given to another people, thy eyes looking on, and languishing at the sight of them all the day, and may there be no strength in thy hand.

May a people which thou knowest not, eat the fruits of thy land, and all thy labours: and mayst thou always suffer oppression, and be crushed at all times.

And be astonished at the terror of those things which thy eyes shall see:

May the Lord strike thee with a very sore ulcer in the knees and in the legs, and be thou incurable from the sole of the foot to the top of the head.

The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, whom thou shalt have appointed over thee, into a nation which thou and thy fathers know not: and there thou shalt serve strange gods, wood and stone.

And thou shalt be lost, as a proverb and a byword to all people, among whom the Lord shall bring thee in.

Thou shalt cast much seed into the ground, and gather little: because the locusts shall consume all.

Thou shalt plant a vineyard, and dig it, and shalt not drink the wine, nor gather any thing thereof: because it shall be wasted with worms.

Thou shalt have olive trees in all thy borders, and shalt not be anointed with the oil: for the olives shall fall off and perish.

Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, and shalt not enjoy them: because they shall be led into captivity.

The blast shall consume all the trees and the fruits of thy ground.

The stranger that liveth with thee in the land, shall rise up over thee, and shall be higher: and thou shalt go down, and be lower.