Curse (Invocation of Harm)

And when you go to my kindred, if they refuse to give her to you, then you will be released from my oath.’

“We can plainly see that the LORD has been with you,” they replied. “We recommend that there should now be an oath between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you

What if my father touches me? Then I would be revealed to him as a deceiver, and I would bring upon myself a curse rather than a blessing.”

His mother replied, “Your curse be on me, my son. Just obey my voice and go get them for me.”

“If someone sins by failing to testify when he hears a public charge about something he has witnessed, whether he has seen it or learned of it, he shall bear the iniquity.

and the priest shall have the woman swear under the oath of the curse—‘then may the LORD make you an attested curse among your people by making your thigh shrivel and your belly swell.

And the priest shall write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the bitter water.

When he has made her drink the water, if she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then the water that brings a curse will enter her and cause bitter suffering; her belly will swell, her thigh will shrivel, and she will become accursed among her people.

your children and wives, and the foreigners in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water—

and so that He may establish you today as His people, and He may be your God as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit,

because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven

Then the LORD your God will put all these curses upon your enemies who hate you and persecute you.

The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him.

See, today I am setting before you a blessing and a curse—

but a curse if you disobey the commandments of the LORD your God and turn aside from the path I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.

And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal to deliver the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you.

They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them.

“When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you,

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live,

Afterward, Joshua read aloud all the words of the law—the blessings and the curses—according to all that is written in the Book of the Law.

And God also brought all the wickedness of the men of Shechem back upon their own heads. So the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal came upon them.

Perhaps the LORD will see my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive today.”

When a man sins against his neighbor and is required to take an oath, and he comes to take an oath before Your altar in this temple,

Keep an eye on Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim who is with you. He called down bitter curses against me on the day I went to Mahanaim, but when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the LORD: ‘I will never put you to the sword.’

because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its people, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the LORD.

When a man sins against his neighbor and is required to take an oath, and he comes to take an oath before Your altar in this temple,

that this is what the LORD says: I am about to bring calamity on this place and on its people, according to all the curses written in the book that has been read in the presence of the king of Judah,

We will not give our daughters in marriage to the people of the land, and we will not take their daughters for our sons.

because they had not met the Israelites with food and water, but had hired Balaam to call down a curse against them (although our God had turned the curse into a blessing).

I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life with a curse—

His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and violence; trouble and malice are under his tongue.

Consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more, so it may be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. Selah

The cursing that he loved, may it fall on him; the blessing in which he refused to delight, may it be far from him.

The cursing that he wore like a coat, may it soak into his body like water, and into his bones like oil.

A partner to a thief hates his own soul; he receives the oath but does not testify.

The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous.

Whoever gives to the poor will not be in need, but he who hides his eyes will receive many curses.

Like a fluttering sparrow or darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.

If one blesses his neighbor with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be counted to him as a curse.

Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

For the land is full of adulterers—because of the curse, the land mourns and the pastures of the wilderness have dried up—their course is evil and their power is misused.

I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth—a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them.

For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as My anger and wrath were poured out on the residents of Jerusalem, so will My wrath be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will become an object of cursing and horror, of vilification and disgrace, and you will never see this place again.’

And I will take away the remnant of Judah who have resolved to go to the land of Egypt to reside there; they will meet their end. They will all fall by the sword or be consumed by famine. From the least to the greatest, they will die by sword or famine; and they will become an object of cursing and horror, of vilification and reproach.

I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;

then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’”

Because of them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire!’

Why are you provoking Me to anger by the work of your hands by burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to reside? As a result, you will be cut off and will become an object of cursing and reproach among all the nations of the earth.

So the LORD could no longer endure the evil deeds and detestable acts you committed, and your land became a desolation, a horror, and an object of cursing, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

For by Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, that Bozrah will become a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse, and all her cities will be in ruins forever.”

For this is what the Lord GOD says: I will deal with you according to your deeds, since you have despised the oath by breaking the covenant.

He took a member of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. Then he carried away the leading men of the land,

‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Seeing that he gave his hand in pledge yet did all these things, he will not escape!’

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘As surely as I live, I will bring down upon his head My oath that he despised and My covenant that he broke.

All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You.

Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed.

As you have been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid; let your hands be strong.”

If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to honor My name,” says the LORD of Hosts, “I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already begun to curse them, because you are not taking it to heart.

You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me.