Deuteronomy 28:2-14

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ²  28:4 Your children ³  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁴  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ⁵  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ⁶  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ⁷  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ⁸  and obey him. ⁹  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ¹⁰  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ¹¹  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ¹²  promised your ancestors ¹³  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ¹⁴  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 28:13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ¹⁵  commandments which I am urging ¹⁶  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹⁷  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ¹⁸  them.

¹ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

² tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

⁴ sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.

⁵ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

⁶ tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.

⁸ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

⁹ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

¹⁰ tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).

¹¹ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

¹² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

¹³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

¹⁴ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

¹⁶ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “in order to serve.”