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.
54. Even the most tender and sensitive man among you will become stingy toward his brother, the wife he loves, and the children he still has left.
55. He will give none of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all that he has left, because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the blockade of all your cities.
56. The most tender and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and tender that she wouldn’t even step on an ant—will become stingy toward the husband she loves or toward her own son or daughter.
57. She won’t share with them the afterbirth from her body and the children she gives birth to. She will secretly eat them out of dire necessity, because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the blockade of your cities.
58. You might not faithfully obey every word of the teachings that are written in this book. You might not fear this glorious and awe-inspiring name: the Lord your God.
59. If so, the Lord will strike you and your descendants with unimaginable plagues. They will be terrible and continuing plagues and severe and lingering diseases.
60. He will again bring all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
61. The Lord will also bring you every kind of sickness and plague not written in this Book of Teachings. They will continue until you’re dead.
62. At one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky. But only a few of you will be left, because you didn’t obey the Lord your God.
63. At one time the Lord was more than glad to make you prosperous and numerous. Now the Lord will be more than glad to destroy you and wipe you out. You will be torn out of the land you’re about to enter and take possession of.
64. Then the Lord will scatter you among all the people of the world, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve gods made of wood and stone that neither you nor your ancestors ever knew.