Who gave Israel up to the looters? It was the LORD himself, against whom we sinned! We would not live as he wanted us to live or obey the teachings he gave us.

So he made us feel the force of his anger and suffer the violence of war. Like fire his anger burned throughout Israel, but we never knew what was happening; we learned nothing at all from it.

"But if you disobey the LORD your God and do not faithfully keep all his commands and laws that I am giving you today, all these evil things will happen to you:

"The LORD will curse your grain crops and the food you prepare from them.

"The LORD will curse everything you do.

"In future generations your descendants and foreigners from distant lands will see the disasters and sufferings that the LORD has brought on your land.

Then the whole world will ask, 'Why did the LORD do this to their land? What was the reason for his fierce anger?'

They served other gods that they had never worshiped before, gods that the LORD had forbidden them to worship.

The LORD became furiously angry, and in his great anger he uprooted them from their land and threw them into a foreign land, and there they are today.'

you will be destroyed---I warn you here and now. You will not live long in that land across the Jordan that you are about to occupy.

I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God's blessing and God's curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life.

But just as he kept every promise that he made to you, so he will carry out every threat.

If you do not keep the covenant which the LORD your God commanded you to keep and if you serve and worship other gods, then in his anger he will punish you, and soon none of you will be left in this good land that he has given you."

Then he said to me, "On it is written the curse that is to go out over the whole land. On one side of the scroll it says that every thief will be removed from the land; and on the other side it says that everyone who tells lies under oath will also be taken away.

The LORD Almighty says that he will send this curse out, and it will enter the house of every thief and the house of everyone who tells lies under oath. It will remain in their houses and leave them in ruins."

You must honor me by what you do. If you will not listen to what I say, then I will bring a curse on you. I will put a curse on the things you receive for your support. In fact, I have already put a curse on them, because you do not take my command seriously.

A curse is on all of you because the whole nation is cheating me.

The LORD Almighty says, "The day is coming when all proud and evil people will burn like straw. On that day they will burn up, and there will be nothing left of them.

He will bring fathers and children together again; otherwise I would have to come and destroy your country."

The whole crowd answered, "Let the responsibility for his death fall on us and on our children!"

I will send dangerous animals among you, and they will kill your children, destroy your livestock, and leave so few of you that your roads will be deserted.

The LORD will scatter you among other nations, where only a few of you will survive.

Although you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, only a few of you will survive, because you did not obey the LORD your God.

Keep back a few hairs and wrap them in the hem of your clothes.

But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it.

And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: "Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that Day the heavens will disappear with a shrill noise, the heavenly bodies will burn up and be destroyed, and the earth with everything in it will vanish.