Scroll to the bottom for thoughts/discussion questions!
One-sentence summary: Moses tells Israel of the blessings they will incur if obey the voice of the Lord and of the curses that will come upon them if they disobey.
Moses tells Israel that if they diligently obey the Lord to observe all His commands carefully, the Lord will set them above all nations on the earth and that "all these blessings will come upon them and overtake them." They will be blessed in the city and country, in the fruit of their body and the produce of their ground, and in the increase of their cattle and flocks. Their baskets and kneading bowls will be blessed. They will be blessed when they come in and when they go out. Their enemies will be defeated before them, coming at them one way and fleeing before them seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing in their storehouses and on all they set their hand. He will bless them in the land and establish them as a holy people to Himself if they keep his commands and walk in His ways, and all nations will see that they are called by the name of the Lord and fear them. The Lord will bless their womb, and He will open his good treasure of the heavens, the rains, to bless their work. They will lend to many nations and not borrow, be "the head and not the tail, [and] above only and not beneath." However, if they do not obey the Lord's voice to observe carefully all His commandments, they will be under a curse and overtaken by it. (Warning: it gets heavy.) They will be cursed in the city and the country. Their baskets and kneading bowls will be cursed, along with the fruit of their body and produce of their land, the increase of their cattle and flocks, and they will be cursed when they come in and when they go out. The Lord will send "cursing, confusion, and rebuke" in all they set their hand to do until they are destroyed and perish quickly because they have forsaken the Lord. The plague will consume them from the land. They will have "consumption, inflammation, fever, the sword, and "scorching mildew." Their "heavens will be bronze, the earth as iron." The Lord will change the rain to powder and dust, and it will come down on them until they are destroyed. They will be defeated before their enemies, going out one way but fleeing seven. They will be troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Their bodies will be for carcasses of the birds and beasts. The Lord will strike them with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scab, and itches, with madness, blindness, and confusion of heart. They will "grope at noonday as a blind mans gropes in darkness." They will not prosper but will be "oppressed and plundered continually, and no one will save [them.]" They will take a wife but another will lie with her, build a house but not dwell in it, plant a vineyard but not gather its grapes, their oxen will be slaughtered but they won't eat of it, their donkeys stolen but not restored, their sheep given to their enemies and their sons and daughters to another people, and their eyes will "look and fail with longing for them all day long," and there will be "no strength in their hand." A nation they have not known will eat the fruit of their land and the produce of their labor, and they will only be "oppressed and crushed continually." Moreover, they will be driven mad with what their eyes see. The Lord will strike them in the knees and legs with boils that will cover their whole body. The Lord will bring them to a nation they have not known, and they will serve other gods of wood and stone and become "an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword to all the nations they are driven." They will sow much seed but gather little because the locusts will consume it, plant vineyards but not eat the grapes or drink the wine because the worms will eat them. They will have olive trees, but their olives will dry up. Their sons and daughters will go into captivity. Locusts will consume everything, and the alien will rise above them. He will lend to them and be the head, and they will be the tail. This is what will happen and pursue and overtake them until they are destroyed. This will be "as a sign and wonder and on [their] descendants forever, because [they] did not serve the Lord their God with joy and gladness of heart because of the abundance of everything." So they will serve their enemies, who God will send against them "in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything," and He will "put a yoke of iron on [their] neck until He has destroyed [them]." The Lord will bring a nation against them from the end of the earth who are fierce and don't respect the elderly or show favor to children, who will eat of their produce until they are destroyed. They will have to eat their own children's flesh because they will be in such dire straights because of this enemy, and even the most refined man among them will be hostile to his wife, brother, and children and will eat his own children. The most delicate and tender woman also will refuse to her husband, son, and daughter her placenta and children, for she will secretly eat them. This will happen if they do not carefully observe these laws of the book or "fear the great and awesome name of the Lord." "Great and prolonged plagues and sicknesses will be brought upon [them]" and also "all the diseases of Egypt that [they] feared, and they will cling to [them.]" Also, other plagues that have not been written in the book of the law will be brought until they are destroyed. They will be few in number, and just as the Lord rejoiced over them to do them good and multiply them, so He will rejoice over them to destroy them and bring them to nothing; they will be plucked from the land and scattered among all people from one end of the earth to the other. They will find no rest but have "a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul." Their life will "hang in doubt before them." They will "fear day and night and have no assurance of life." They will have such fear that they will wish for night in the day and wish for day at night because of all they see. They will go back to Egypt in ships even thought the Lord had said they would never see it again. They will be sold to their enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy them.
Moses says that these are the words of the covenant which the Lord told him to make with Israel in Moab (besides the one at Horeb.) Moses tells the people how they have seen all God did for them in Egypt. However, he says, they still do not have "a heart to perceive, eyes to see, or ears to hear." He reminds them of God's provision in the wilderness and the victory He gave them and says that they therefore must heed the words of this covenant and do them. He says this covenant will be with all Israel. He warns against anyone having a "bitter root" who says he can do what he wants and still be blessed, because the Lord's anger will be against that man and all these curses will settle on Him, and the Lord will blot his name from heaven and "set him from Israel for adversity." And when people see the curse of the land on the people of Israel, when they see a city or the land in ruins, they will ask what it means and will be answered, "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers... for they went and served other gods and worshipped them." Moses says, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."
Thoughts/Discussion Questions:
It seems that the curses are twice as long as the blessings! What dire and severe consequences Israel would have to endure. The Bible is definitely not a cute children's story; most of it is quite sad, as is the human condition. As it has once been said: "The Gospel is bad news before it is good news!"