1 “ 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. 2And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the Lord your God:

7 The Lord will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.

8 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. 9The Lord will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.

11 The Lord will make you prosper abundantly — in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land — in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

12 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.

13 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. 14Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them.

15 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:

20 The Lord will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him.

21 The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess. 22The 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. 23The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

24 The Lord will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

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

28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, 29and 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.

30 You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit. 31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you.

32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand. 33A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed. 34You will be driven mad by the sights you see.

35 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.

36 The Lord will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods— gods of wood and stone. 37You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

38 You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. 39You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off. 41You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. 42Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

43 The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower. 44He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

45 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. 46These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.

47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, 48you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

49 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, 50a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. 52They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the Lord your God has given you.

53 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.

54 The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, 55refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates.

56 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 57the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

58 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— 59He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. 60He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.

61 The Lord will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62You 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.

63 Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64 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. 65Among 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.

66 So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival. 67In 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.

68 The Lord will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

14 One day Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. And when the demon was gone, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowds were amazed, 15but some of them said, “It is by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons, that He drives out demons.” 16And others tested Him by demanding a sign from heaven.

17 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and a house divided against a house will fall. 18If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? After all, you say that I drive out demons by Beelzebul. 19And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 20But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his house, his possessions are secure. 22But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and then he divides up his plunder.

23 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.

24 When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25On its return, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the final plight of that man is worse than the first.”

27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and blessed are the breasts that nursed You!”

28 But He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

29 As the crowds were increasing, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. 30For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so the Son of Man will be a sign to this generation.

31 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now One greater than Solomon is here. 32The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here.

33 No one lights a lamp and puts it in a cellar or under a basket. Instead, he sets it on a stand, so those who enter can see the light.

34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body is full of darkness. 35Be careful, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36So if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, you will be radiant, as though a lamp were shining on you.”