13. The Lord your God will make you leaders, not followers. Pay attention to his commands that I'm giving you today. Be careful to follow them. Then you will always be on top. You will never be on the bottom.
14. Don't turn away from any of the commands I'm giving you today. Don't turn to the right or the left. Don't follow other gods. Don't worship them.
15. But suppose you don't obey the Lord your God. And you aren't careful to follow all of his commands and rules I'm giving you today. Then he will send curses on you. They'll catch up with you. Here are those curses.
16. You will be cursed in the cities. You will be cursed out in the country.
17. Your baskets and bread pans will be cursed.
18. Your children will be cursed. Your crops will be cursed. Your calves and lambs will be cursed.
19. You will be cursed no matter where you go.
20. The Lord will send curses on you. You won't know what's going on. In everything you do, he will be angry with you. You will be destroyed suddenly and completely. That will happen because you did an evil thing when you deserted the Lord.
21. He will send all kinds of sicknesses on you. He'll send them until he has destroyed you. He'll remove you from the land you are entering to take as your own.
22. The Lord will make you sick and very weak. He will strike you with fever and swelling. He'll send burning heat. There won't be any rain. The hot winds will completely dry up your crops. All of those things will happen until you die.
23. The sky above you will be like bronze. The ground beneath you will be like iron.
24. The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder. It will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
25. The Lord will help your enemies win the battle over you. You will come at them from one direction. But you will run away from them in seven directions. You will look so bad that all of the kingdoms on earth will be completely shocked when they see you.