53Because 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. 54Even 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. 55He 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. 56The 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. 57She 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. 58You 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. 59If so, the LORD will strike you and your descendants with unimaginable plagues. They will be terrible and continuing plagues and severe and lingering diseases. 60He will again bring all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61The 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. 62At 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. 63At 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. 64Then 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. 65Among those nations you will find no peace, no place to call your own. There the LORD will give you an unsettled mind, failing eyesight, and despair. 66Your life will always be hanging by a thread. You will live in terror day and night. You will never feel sure of your life. 67In the morning you'll say, "If only it were evening!" And in the evening you'll say, "If only it were morning!" You'll talk this way because of the things that will terrify you and because of the things you'll see. 68The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships on a journey that I said you would never take again. There you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies, but no one will buy you.
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