Deuteronomy 28 in the early church

“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God:

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you.

The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.

If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

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

Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.

The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.

The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,

and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.

The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower.

He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you.

The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter

If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—

He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.

He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.

The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival.

In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.