43. “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker.
44. They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!
45. “If you refuse to listen to the lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed.
46. These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.
47. If you do not serve the lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,
48. you will serve your enemies whom the lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.
49. “The lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand,
50. a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
51. Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death.
52. They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the lord your God has given you.
53. “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the lord your God has given you.
54. The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.
55. He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.
56. The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter.