39. You will plant vineyards and work hard at taking care of them, but you won't gather any grapes, much less get any wine, and the vines themselves will be eaten by worms.
40. Even if your olive trees grow everywhere in your country, the olives will fall off before they are ready, and there won't be enough olive oil for combing your hair.
41. Even your infant sons and daughters will be taken as prisoners of war.
42. Locusts will eat your crops and strip your trees of leaves and fruit.
43. Foreigners in your towns will become wealthy and powerful, while you become poor and powerless.
44. You will be so short of money that you will have to borrow from those foreigners. They will be the leaders in the community, and you will be the followers.
45. Israel, if you don't obey the laws and teachings that the Lord your God is giving you, he will send these curses to chase, attack, and destroy you.
46. Then everyone will look at you and your descendants and realize that the Lord has placed you under a curse.
47. If the Lord makes you wealthy, but you don't joyfully worship and honour him,
48. he will send enemies to attack you and make you their slaves. Then you will live in poverty with nothing to eat, drink, or wear, and your owners will work you to death.
49. Foreigners who speak a strange language will be sent to attack you without warning, just like an eagle swooping down.
50. They won't show any mercy, and they will have no respect for old people or pity for children.
51. They will take your cattle, sheep, goats, grain, wine, and olive oil, then leave you to starve.
52. All over the land that the Lord your God gave you, the enemy army will surround your towns. You may feel safe inside your town walls, but the enemy will tear them down,
53. while you wait in horror. Finally, you will get so hungry that you will eat the sons and daughters that the Lord gave you.