Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 28:20-24 
Context28:20 “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 28:21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases 4 until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 28:22 He 5 will afflict you with weakness, 6 fever, inflammation, infection, 7 sword, 8 blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 28:23 The 9 sky 10 above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 28:24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.
1 tn Heb “the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke” (NASB and NIV similar); NRSV “disaster, panic, and frustration.”
2 tn Heb “in all the stretching out of your hand.”
3 tc For the MT first person common singular suffix (“me”), the LXX reads either “Lord” (Lucian) or third person masculine singular suffix (“him”; various codices). The MT’s more difficult reading probably represents the original text.
tn Heb “the evil of your doings wherein you have forsaken me”; CEV “all because you rejected the Lord.”
4 tn Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”
5 tn Heb “The
6 tn Or perhaps “consumption” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. NAB “wasting”; NIV, NLT “wasting disease”).
7 tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”
8 tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).
9 tc The MT reads “Your.” The LXX reads “Heaven will be to you.”
10 tn Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
