Deuteronomy 28:15-18

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

28:15 “But if you ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: 28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 28:17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 28:18 Your children will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

Deuteronomy 28:30-41

28:30 You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. 28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you. 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. 28:33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. 28:34 You will go insane from seeing all this. 28:35 The Lord will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils – from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 28:36 The Lord will force you and your king whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. 28:37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.

The Curse of Reversed Status

28:38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. 28:41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity.

Jeremiah 14:2-8

14:2 “The people of Judah are in mourning.

The people in her cities are pining away.

They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow.

Cries of distress come up to me from Jerusalem.

14:3 The leading men of the cities send their servants for water.

They go to the cisterns, but they do not find any water there.

They return with their containers empty.

Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands.

14:4 They are dismayed because the ground is cracked

because there has been no rain in the land.

The farmers, too, are dismayed

and bury their faces in their hands.

14:5 Even the doe abandons her newborn fawn in the field

because there is no grass.

14:6 Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops

and pant for breath like jackals.

Their eyes are strained looking for food,

because there is none to be found.”

14:7 Then I said,

“O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name

even though our sins speak out against us.

Indeed, we have turned away from you many times.

We have sinned against you.

14:8 You have been the object of Israel’s hopes.

You have saved them when they were in trouble.

Why have you become like a resident foreigner in the land?

Why have you become like a traveler who only stops in to spend the night?

Joel 1:10-13

1:10 The crops of the fields have been destroyed.

The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished.

The fresh wine has dried up;

the olive oil languishes.

1:11 Be distressed, farmers;

wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley.

For the harvest of the field has perished.

1:12 The vine has dried up;

the fig tree languishes –

the pomegranate, date, and apple as well.

In fact, all the trees of the field have dried up.

Indeed, the joy of the people has dried up!

1:13 Get dressed and lament, you priests!

Wail, you who minister at the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God,

because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings

to the temple of your God anymore.

Joel 1:16-18

1:16 Our food has been cut off right before our eyes!

There is no longer any joy or gladness in the temple of our God!

1:17 The grains of seed have shriveled beneath their shovels.

Storehouses have been decimated

and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.

1:18 Listen to the cattle groan!

The herds of livestock wander around in confusion

because they have no pasture.

Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

Amos 4:6-10

4:6 “But surely I gave you no food to eat in any of your cities;

you lacked food everywhere you live.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest.

I gave rain to one city, but not to another.

One field would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

4:8 People from two or three cities staggered into one city to get water,

but remained thirsty.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:9 “I destroyed your crops with blight and disease.

Locusts kept devouring your orchards, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues.

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with the horses you had captured.

I made the stench from the corpses rise up into your nostrils.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Haggai 2:16-17

2:16 From that time when one came expecting a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures from it, there were only twenty. 2:17 I struck all the products of your labor with blight, disease, and hail, and yet you brought nothing to me,’ says the Lord.