CURSES FOR DISOBEDIENCE

Deuteronomy 28:15-35 / Keywords 28:15

However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

 

Curses for Disobedience

28:15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.[a] 21 The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

Footnotes

a. Deuteronomy 28:20 Hebrew me

1. Just as obedience to God brings blessings, so disobedience brings curses. There is no middle ground. When God’s people disobey God and don’t follow his words, they cannot escape curses. The curses listed (16-19) are the exact reverse of God’s blessing (3-6). When they forsake God, they will experience not only curse, confusion, and rebuke in all the work of their hands, but also destruction, disease, drought, defeat in battle, disease of Egypt, mental illness, oppression, and robbery until they are destroyed and come to sudden ruin. All these predicted curses actually happened to them when they forsook God and rejected his ways.

2. We live in a time when most people take it lightly to ignore or disobey God’s word. But disobedience to God is not a light matter. It is like entering through wide door that leads to destruction. On the other hand, life of obedience to God’s word is like entering through the narrow gate, but obedience leads to a life full of joy and blessing. God wants us to take disobedience seriously. If God is against us, we become an eternal loser. More than that, there is no hiding place for us. God doesn’t threaten us with the list of curses, but he lets us know the consequences of disobedience so that we may live a blessed life through obedience to him.

Prayer Lord, you know what is in my heart. Have mercy on me not to forsake you but to obey your word carefully and follow it with a trembling heart.

One Word Do I live a life of obedience?