39. You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you won’t drink any wine or gather any grapes, because worms will eat them.
40. You will have olive trees everywhere in your country but no olive oil to rub on your skin, because the olives will fall off the trees.
41. You will have sons and daughters, but you won’t be able to keep them because they will be taken as prisoners of war.
42. Crickets will swarm all over your trees and the crops in your fields.
43. The ⌊standard of living for the⌋ foreigners who live among you will rise higher and higher, while your ⌊standard of living⌋ will sink lower and lower.
44. They will be able to make loans to you, but you won’t be able to make loans to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail.
45. All these curses will come to you. They will pursue you and stay close to you until you’re destroyed, because you didn’t obey the Lord your God or follow his commands and laws, which I’m giving you.
46. These curses will be a sign and an amazing thing to warn you and your descendants forever.
47. You didn’t serve the Lord your God with a joyful and happy heart when you had so much.
48. So you will serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you. You will serve them even though you are already hungry, thirsty, naked, and in need of everything. The Lord will put a heavy burden of hard work on you until he destroys you.
49. The Lord will bring against you a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth. The nation will swoop down on you like an eagle. It will be a nation whose language you won’t understand.
50. Its people will be fierce-looking. They will show no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
51. They’ll eat the offspring of your animals and the crops from your fields until you’re destroyed. They’ll leave you no grain, no new wine, no olive oil, no calves from your herds, and no lambs or kids from your flocks. They’ll continue to do this until they’ve completely ruined you.
52. They will blockade all your cities until the high, fortified walls in which you trust come down everywhere in your land. They’ll blockade all the cities everywhere in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
53. Because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the blockade, you will eat the flesh of your own children, the sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you.