Deuteronomy 28: A blessing and a warning

Synopsis:

If you keep these commandments, you will be blessed. If you don’t, you will be cursed. And by cursed I mean REALLY cursed. You will experience pestilence, your wife will sleep with another man,  you will get consumption and die, you will get scabies and be blind. Your ox will be killed and you will not be allowed to eat your ass.  Your sons and daughters will be given to your enemies. You will be given a different king to serve and you will be given to other gods and history shall forget you. All your fruit and harvest shall be horrid and what is left will be eaten by locusts. Your enemies will eat your children. You will be bothered by the plague of all plagues and suffer every sickness and every plague. And when there are very few of you left, you will be scattered among all the people of the world. You will be sold into slavery and that will be the end of you.

In other words:

Keep the commandments and all will be well. Disobey and that will be the end of you.

Favorite bit:

The entire curse. It goes on from Deuteronomy 28:15-68  It’s very thorough and very entertaining. One wonders if Lawrence Stern borrowed from this for his lengthy curse in Tristam Shandy.

The good news:

This curse has clearly already happened, so don’t worry about it anymore. These rules can’t possibly apply to anyone living anymore. This was very specific to the congregation of Israel which very clearly didn't include everyone. Just those who were directly descendant from Israel. So if you are a Christian and think if you need to obey these commandments or you will be harmed, your religious leader who told you that is an idiot.

Moral Lesson Learned:

If it’s already happened, you don’t have to worry about it anymore (Deuteronomy 28)