41. You will have sons and daughters. But you will not be able to keep them. They will be taken captive.
42. Locusts will destroy all your trees and crops.
43. The foreigners who live among you will get stronger and stronger. And you will get weaker and weaker.
44. Foreigners will lend money to you. But you will not be able to lend to them. They will be like the head. And you will be like the tail.
45. All these curses will come upon you. They will chase you and catch you and destroy you. This will happen because you did not obey the Lord your God. You did not keep the commands and laws he gave you.
46. The curses will be signs and miracles to you and your descendants forever.
47. You had plenty of everything. But you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a pure heart.
48. So you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, naked and poor. The Lord will put a load on you until he has destroyed you.
49. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away. It will be from the end of the world. The nation will swoop down like an eagle. You won’t understand their language.
50. They will look mean. They will not respect old people or feel sorry for the young.
51. They will eat the calves from your cattle and the harvest of your field. And you will be destroyed. They will not leave you any grain, new wine or oil. They will not leave you any calves from your herds or lambs from your flocks. You will be ruined.
52. That nation will surround and attack all your cities. You trust in your high, strong walls. But they will fall down. That nation will surround all your cities everywhere in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
53. Your enemy will surround you. Those people will make you starve. You will eat your own babies. You will eat the bodies of the sons and daughters the Lord gave you.
54. Even the most gentle and kind man among you will become cruel. He will be cruel to his brother, his wife whom he loves and his children who are still alive.
55. He will not even give them any of the flesh of his children he is eating. It will be all he has left. Your enemy will surround you. Those people will make you starve in all your cities.