When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess, you must pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ¹ 

These curses ¹  will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants. ² 

The Lord will single him out ¹  for judgment ²  from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law.

and the curse if you pay no attention ¹  to his ²  commandments and turn from the way I am setting before ³  you today to pursue ⁴  other gods you have not known.

for they did not meet you with food and water on the way as you came from Egypt, and furthermore, they hired ¹  Balaam son of Beor of Pethor in Aram Naharaim to curse you.

‘Cursed is the one ¹  who makes a carved or metal image – something abhorrent ²  to the Lord, the work of the craftsman ³  – and sets it up in a secret place.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ ⁴ 

“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 

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 ¹  you.

The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ¹  will rage ²  against that man; all the curses ³  written in this scroll will fall upon him ⁴  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ⁵ 

“When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses ¹  I have set before you, you will reflect upon them ²  in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.

Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live!

“The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you ¹  in everything you undertake ²  until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me. ³ 

his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury ¹  him that same day, for the one who is left exposed ²  on a tree is cursed by God. ³  You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath ¹  along with it. ²  You must absolutely detest ³  and abhor it, ⁴  for it is an object of divine wrath.

When such a person ¹  hears the words of this oath he secretly ²  blesses himself ³  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁴  This will destroy ⁵  the watered ground with the parched. ⁶ 

You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. ¹  Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors.

We put all of these under divine judgment ¹  just as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon – every occupied city, ²  including women and children.

You must by all means destroy ¹  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ² 

you must by all means ¹  slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate ²  with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock.

Instead you must utterly annihilate them ¹  – the Hittites, ²  Amorites, ³  Canaanites, ⁴  Perizzites, ⁵  Hivites, ⁶  and Jebusites ⁷  – just as the Lord your God has commanded you,