Deuteronomy 28:15

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

28:15 “But if you ignore ¹  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: ² 

Deuteronomy 28:45

28:45 All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given ³  you.

Jeremiah 12:16

12:16 But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. ⁴  Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. ⁵  But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” ⁶  If they do these things, ⁷  then they will be included among the people I call my own. ⁸ 

Amos 9:10

9:10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword –

the ones who say, ‘Disaster will not come near, it will not confront us.’

Amos 9:1

9:1 I saw the sovereign One ⁹  standing by the altar ¹⁰  and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, ¹¹  so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people, ¹² 

and I will kill the survivors ¹³  with the sword.

No one will be able to run away; ¹⁴ 

no one will be able to escape. ¹⁵ 

Amos 5:4

5:4 The Lord says this to the family ¹⁶  of Israel:

“Seek me ¹⁷  so you can live!

[28:15]  ¹ tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”

[28:15]  ² tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”

[28:45]  ³ tn Heb “commanded”; NAB, NIV, TEV “he gave you.”

[12:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “the ways of my people.” For this nuance of the word “ways” compare 10:2 and the notes there.

[12:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “taught my people to swear by Baal.”

[12:16]  ⁶ tn The words “I swear” are not in the text but are implicit to the oath formula. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:16]  ⁷ tn The words “If they do this” are not in the text. They are part of an attempt to break up a Hebrew sentence which is long and complex into equivalent shorter sentences consistent with contemporary English style. Verse 16 in Hebrew is all one sentence with a long complex conditional clause followed by a short consequence: “If they carefully learn the ways of my people to swear by name, ‘By the life of the Lord,’ as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.” The translation strives to create the same contingencies and modifications by breaking up the sentence into shorter sentences in accord with contemporary English style.

[12:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “they will be built up among my people.” The expression “be built up among” is without parallel. However, what is involved here is conceptually parallel to the ideas expressed in Isa 19:23-25 and Zech 14:16-19. That is, these people will be allowed to live on their own land, to worship the Lord there, and to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. To translate literally would be meaningless or misleading for many readers.

[9:1]  ⁹ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:1]  ¹⁰ sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.

[9:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.

[9:1]  ¹² tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”

[9:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.

[9:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”

[9:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”

[5:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “house.”

[5:4]  ¹⁷ sn The following verses explain what it meant to seek the Lord. Israel was to abandon the mere formalism and distorted view of God and reality that characterized religious activity at the worship sites, as well as the social injustice that permeated Israelite society. Instead the people were to repent and promote justice in the land. This call to seek the Lord echoes the challenge in 4:13 to prepare to meet him as he truly is.