Now you are condemned to perpetual servitude as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.” ¹ 

Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, launched an attack ¹  against Israel. He summoned ²  Balaam son of Beor to call down judgment ³  on you.

But we can’t allow our daughters to marry them, ¹  for the Israelites took an oath, saying, ‘Whoever gives a woman to a Benjaminite will be destroyed!’ ² 

Then ¹  his wife said to him, “Are you still holding firmly to your integrity? ²  Curse ³  God, and die!” ⁴ 

They will pass through the land ¹  destitute and starving. Their hunger will make them angry, ²  and they will curse their king and their God ³  as they look upward.

Your names will live on in the curse formulas of my chosen ones. ¹  The sovereign Lord will kill you, but he will give his servants another name.

I made Jerusalem ¹  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ²  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ³  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ⁴  Such is already becoming the case! ⁵ 

For I solemnly swear,” ¹  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ²  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ³  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

“Note well, you still have to contend with Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, ¹  who tried to call down upon me a horrible judgment when I went to Mahanaim. ²  He came down and met me at the Jordan, and I solemnly promised ³  him by the Lord, ‘I will not strike you down ⁴  with the sword.’

You reprimand arrogant people. Those who stray from your commands are doomed. ¹ 

So now, you are banished ¹  from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. ¹  You must fear ²  your God; I am the Lord.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on this place and its residents, the details of which are recorded in the scroll which they read before the king of Judah.

All day long my enemies taunt me; those who mock me use my name in their curses. ¹ 

Also, do not pay attention to everything that people ¹  say; otherwise, ²  you might even hear ³  your servant cursing you.

He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, ¹  so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.” ² 

At that he began to curse, and he swore with an oath, “I do not know the man!” At that moment a rooster crowed. ¹ 

Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered.”

Then he began to curse, and he swore with an oath, “I do not know this man you are talking about!”

But this rabble ¹  who do not know the law are accursed!”