Questions for Orthodox Rabbis only

1. Is it a religious duty of Jews to promote the Noahide laws amongst gentiles?
2. Would you agree that the duty to promote these Noahide laws amongst gentiles amounts to a duty to ensure minimum moral standards in these countries, as the late Rabbi Schneerson said? https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-noahide-laws/
3. Is Islam in conformity with the Noahide laws?
4. Is Christianity in conformity with the Noahide law?
5. Is Christianity idolatrous?
6. Does God expect Israel to be a theocracy?
7. Would world Jewry benefit from having a hierarchical order of seniority for rabbis? (I have in mind a National Rabbi, a County Rabbi, a City Rabbi, a Town Rabbi. Out of all the National Rabbis of the world, you could even have a "Pope Rabbi", so to speak, perhaps even using the rules of the Papal Conclave to choose one. I have in mind a five year term.) 
8. Would having a Register of Jews be useful for keeping track of members of the tribe in the diaspora and also for imposing standards of behaviour since they could then be struck off the Register, so to speak, if they misbehave or do not conform to minimum standards of observance?
9. Would World Jewry benefit from having some form of quality control in terms of their behaviour if some of this behaviour - particularly amongst liberal assimilated Jews - provokes antisemitism? 
10. Would you agree that without a more hierarchical structure, it is impossible to impose discipline on members of the tribe or  enforce standards of observance?
11. Should Jews object if usury were banned and slavery reintroduced?
12. Should the Third Temple be built?
13. Has Rabbinical Judaism served Jewry better than Temple Judaism?
14. Bearing in mind the sex scandals of the Catholic Church that are now coming to light, are all priesthoods corruptible?
15. Should a corruptible priesthood be entrusted to maintain morality?
16. While any judiciary is also in theory corruptible, legal decisions are subject to argument, scrutiny and appeal. If this is the case, would not the Islamic system of theocracy ie sharia be more effective at maintaining morality?
17. Would you agree that sexual corruption leads to moral corruption?
18. Would you agree that moral corruption leads to intellectual corruption?
19. Would you agree that intellectual corruption is the inability to use reason to solve the problems caused by sexual and moral corruption?
20. Is the West intellectually corrupt?
21. Is the blatant breaking of one's own rules eg free speech, freedom of belief, freedom of association while denying it conclusive evidence of intellectual corruption?
22. Could God be punishing the Post-Christian West for nearly 1800 years of idolatry and all who live in it including observant Jews for not performing their religious duty of warning gentiles against idolatry and pointing out to them that their laws have fallen dangerously below the minimum moral standards of the Noahide laws?
23. Is feminism the cause of sexual, moral and intellectual corruption of the West as well as gender confusion and the abomination of gay marriage?

Applying Heidegger to Judaism

Questions on Heidegger

It strikes me that if you are Jewish, the question can be made more easy to answer by narrowing it to "How does one live an authentically Jewish life?"

While there are Jews who do not care for Judaism and reject their traditions, the reasons are quite easy to discern: Judaism is too difficult, too restrictive and it is just easier not to be a Jew.

If we are able to make the admission that we want the easy way out, then life lived as a gentile beckons.

If we want to live as Jews, then we would have to follow the principles of Judaism, to think and do as a Jew, and to be identified by gentiles as such.

What if it becomes economically and socially inconvenient to be identified as a Jew?

Then the Jew must decide how important his Jewish identity is to him as a human being and what sacrifices he is prepared or not prepared to make.

Which kind of Judaism is more authentic? Orthodox Judaism or Reform Judaism?

Orthodox Jews are more observant of the principles of  Judaism so can be said to be more authentically Jewish.

If convenience is more important to you than authenticity as a Jew, you would become a Reform Jew. Understandably, most people want to have the best of both worlds and this is evidenced by there are more Reform Jews than there are Orthodox Jews.

But instead of asking what is good for Jews, we should ask ourselves what is good for Judaism. If we cared about Judaism, we would want Judaism to preserve its integrity by remaining true to its principles.

Should gentiles care about Judaism and the integrity of the principles of Judaism?

The world is divided between Jews and gentiles. We also know that Christianity and Islam represent attempts by the gentile to adopt Judaism for himself to have the benefits of Judaism and presumably also to protect himself from the Jew who have been around for longer and must be assumed to be wiser or more cunning.

Should Jews care what gentiles think of them? Of course, since they will always be a minority if they live outside Israel, and Israel is only a small country with hostile neighbours.

How should Jews think of themselves?

How should gentiles think of Jews?

If you are Jewish and wish to live as a Jew, then you must logically and necessarily be an observant Jew.

If you are a gentile and have to deal with Jews, then you would logically and necessarily want only to have dealings with the better observant sort of Jew than the kind of Jew who wants to have his identity as a Jew but who is not prepared to make the necessary sacrifices and suffer the restrictions of being an observant Jew.

If you are a gentile afraid of being exploited by the bad and more cunning Jew, what can you do?

You might ask yourself why your religion and political system are failing to protect you from the predatory Jewish minority in your country. If you are Christian and complaining about predatory Jews, then clearly your religion is not what it's cracked out to be. If you are Muslim and complaining about bad Jewish neocons who advise their American overlords to invade your country and steal your oil, are you suffering from the same problem as Christians?

The New Testament states nothing clearly and is infamous for its vague extremist pronouncements. It cannot be denied that it was Christians that were responsible for the outbreak of two World Wars and are infamously schismatic. No other religion has had wars of religion on the scale of the European Wars of Religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

The Koran is said to be the directly revealed Word of God and states its principles clearly and succinctly. If Muslims suffer at the hands of Jews and Christians, could the problem be that Muslims themselves do not follow their own rules properly?

Which is worse? Being unable to follow the rules of your religion because your scripture is a contradictory mess or having scripture that is said to be the directly revealed Word of God but still being unable to follow it properly through some defect of intellect or character?

What prevents Muslims from following the Koran properly? Is it the evil policies they are compelled to implement imposed on them by their corrupt and rapacious Post-Christian overlords who want to impose gay marriage, usury and liberal democracy globally, egged on by the Reform Jews of America?

Are Orthodox Jews doing enough to preserve the integrity of Judaism? If not, what can they do about it?

Are Orthodox Jews more authentic than Reform Jews? Are Orthodox Jews afraid of Reform Jews?

Why should the more observant Jew be lower in status to the less observant Jew? Why is the more observant Jew lower in status to the less observant Jew?

http://www.world-religions-professor.com/orthodox-jews.html

Have Orthodox Jews omitted to practise some important principle of Judaism to become lower in status than the assimilated and liberal Jew, and are they being punished by God if He exists for this omission?

Are Orthodox Jews promoting the Noahide laws as part of their religious obligation?

If so, how successful and authentic are they in this exercise?

Are Orthodox Jews asking themselves whether Christianity or Islam satisfies the minimum moral requirements of the Noahide laws?

Are Orthodox Jews morally and religiously obliged to point out the idolatry of Christianity and suggest to the Post-Christian the reason why his religion and political system might have failed?

Is the doctrine of the Trinity a patent absurdity that no reasonable person not indoctrinated with the catechism since childhood would accept?

Are Orthodox Jews morally and religiously obliged to point out to the Post-Christian that Christianity must be replaced if it has obviously failed, and there is only one rational and moral choice?

Isn't this part of their duty to the gentile as God's Chosen People?

Do Jews have a duty to the gentile?

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-noahide-laws/

The late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last leader of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism wrote:

We must do everything possible to ensure that the seven Noahide laws are observed. If this can be accomplished through force or through other kinder and more peaceful means through explaining to non-Jews that they should accept God’s wishes [we should do so]…Anyone who is able to influence a non-Jew in any way to keep the seven commandments is obligated to do so, since that is what God commanded Moses our teacher (“Sheva Mitzvot Shel Benai Noach,” Hapardes 59:9 7-11, 5745)

Do Jews and Muslims have a duty to warn Christians about their idolatry?

Jews are religiously obliged to promote the Noahide laws which forbids idolatry. The Koran tells Muslims to admonish those who say that God has begotten a son. 18:4

See also 31:3, 12:106, 4:48, 4:116, 39:65, 72:18, 2:51, 21:51-3, 4:117, 6:100, 7:190, 10:18, 18:42, 16:20-1, 3:79, 25:43, 45:23, 6:19, 9:31, 30-31-2, 9:107, 6:82, 39:17, 14:35, 6:162-4

http://www.submission.info/perspectives/monotheism/idolworship.html

Christians are made aware that they are supposed to forbid idolatry. For some reason, they cannot quite see that praying to the idols of Mary and Jesus, or imagining that they are talking to Mary and Jesus when they should be praying to an ineffable God is obviously idolatry.

http://eternal-destinations.blogspot.com/2014/02/messages-from-lord-for-catholics.html

Let us suppose that Jews and Muslims have at some point in the past tried to point out to Christians that they were practising idolatry and gave up for some reason when Christians resorted to violence and intimidation.

The fact that Christians have for 2000 years practised something that they must know to be idolatrous neatly explains why Christianity and hypocrisy so often walk hand in hand. That the West is now Post-Christian and its clergy mired in scandals of sexual misconduct is conclusive evidence that Christianity has failed and is unlikely to regain its moral authority within our lifetimes, if ever.

If you believe that an executed revolutionary can be the co-equal of the Abrahamic God you must be either as credulous as a child or have suspended your disbelief beyond the exercise of reason. If you only pretend that you believe this in order to avoid ostracisation, violence and persecution or perhaps to keep your job as priest, bishop, archbishop or Pope, you must be morally corrupt.

Is it not obvious to everyone except feminists and liberals that all societies that wish to remain in good health require the majority of its people to be parents and for the overwhelming majority of these parents to be married parents?

The Emerging Jewish Center

Assimilated liberal Jews threaten the religious freedom of observant Jews

30:00 Feminazi running Ofsted wants to be more feminazi and to persecute religious schools for not subscribing to "fundamental British values" of gay marriage, sex education for 4 year old children and widespread fornication in our dysgenic Feminist State. https://t.co/0w2ZdwmiPm

— Claire Khaw (@MinimumSt8) July 15, 2018

Amanda Speilman, Chief Inspector of OFSTED gave a speech this week warning of an "expanding sense of religious entitlement" by parents putting pressure on head teachers to change school policy to suit their needs. She wants to assert the Muscular Liberalism of the Feminist State.

— Claire Khaw (@MinimumSt8) July 15, 2018

As @EmilyBuchanan1 points out, in an atomised society of a godless feminazi government, no one is quite sure about what the totalitarian concept of "fundamental British values" means. Imagine if the Tudors had decided to enshrine their values forever in some misguided law!

— Claire Khaw (@MinimumSt8) July 15, 2018

What would have been the "fundamental English values" of Tudor times if the Tudors had decided to impose it on the English?  A culture of religious intolerance, persecution and burning each other at the stake over doctrinal disagreements as a form of public entertainment?

— Claire Khaw (@MinimumSt8) July 15, 2018

It seems the morons who now govern us implicitly believe in Francis Fukuyama's End of History in which Western liberal democracies have reached such a pinnacle of achievement that it dares to enshrine its deity of sexual liberation forever in legislation. Was that neocon right?

— Claire Khaw (@MinimumSt8) July 15, 2018

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-liberalism-means-empire/

Liberal democracy is unnatural. It is a product of power and security, not innate human sociability. It is peculiar rather than universal, accidental rather than teleologically preordained. 

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/mccarthy/does-liberalism-mean-empire/

But power is a protean thing; it doesn’t just mean state power but any kind of hold over human beings. This highlights one of the paradoxes of liberalism: the ideology gains more power in terms of popular appeal at the expense of the states that make it possible. This is a good thing to the extent that liberal attitudes check abusive government. It’s a bad thing to the extent that liberal attitudes deprive states and populations alike of the wherewithal to combat external threats when they do arise. Pacifism, as a cousin or acute manifestation of liberalism, is a case in point. It’s one of the ideological luxuries made possible by security, but if adopted generally there would soon be no security left to leave it a choice for anyone but martyrs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b9v6cw


Emily Buchanan:

There was a time when being Chief Inspector of Ofsted meant simply monitoring pupil welfare in schools and keeping a beady eye on academic standards, but as cultural and religious standards increase, the job is now much more challenging. Amanda Spielman became the Head of Ofsted 18 months ago and has found herself at the sharp end, often treading on religious sensitivities as she attempts to exert what she calls Muscular Liberalism in favour of so-called British values in the classroom. She gave a speech last week in which she talked of an expanding sense of religious and cultural entitlement by some faith groups.  I asked her what she meant by that.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amanda-spielmans-speech-at-the-ascl-annual-conference-2018

Amanda Spielman:

We're hearing from a number of directions that parent groups and community groups increasingly putting pressure on schools to make provision that is very specific to that group, so for example, community groups even that only reflect a small proportion of parents' groups in the school may feel that they have an absolute entitlement to a community language taught, we see more pressure for parents to be able to withdraw children from slices of the curriculum that haven't historically been talked about as being things from which children should be withdrawn as well as disagreements about school uniform policies.

Emily Buchanan:

So why do you think this is happening?

Amanda Spielman:

Well, we are in increasingly diverse world with greater divergence in parental expectation and desire and community affiliation, the job of being a head is harder and it's tougher for them to get all parents to get decisions that they have to take.

Emily Buchanan:

And I suppose with that comes perhaps a lack of confidence in what is meant by so-called British values. You've talked about the need for Muscular Liberalism to be confident of those values but perhaps heads are not so sure what they are?

Amanda Spielman:

Well, at one level I think it's clear, but how it's interpreted, I think it's a question of what is the point at which tolerance of other faiths and beliefs strays a little too far into allowing groups of people to wall themselves off into a bubble that nothing else can penetrate at which point the sense of a school as a cohesive community can start to break down.

Emily Buchanan:

Well, now you've clashed with a number of religious groups, haven't you, from the Muslim Council of Britain and the Christian Institute. They would argue that there's already too much interference by the government in education.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/ofsted-criticises-charedi-school-for-failing-to-teach-about-same-sex-orientation-1.60382

Rabbi Bassous calls all Jews with the flame of the Torah still burning in their hearts to take a stand against "fundamental British values" which have fallen dangerously below the minimum standards of the Noahide laws

Distinguishing authentic Orthodox Judaism from Reform Judaism is crucial to preserving the good of Jewish identity and keeping observant Jews safe

Amanda Spielman:

I don't think that's the case. I am talking about state education that is funded by the taxpayer and about a system that is designed to make a nation that works for all children. Schools have to make a balance that works for all children. Nobody should feel left out, nobody should feel not included. If anybody wants to make one identity that shuts out all identity - tribal identity if you like - then it creates problems for the people around them. So what we're trying to do is to make sure that we properly apply the framework of law and policy that we have to apply and that way we work helps heads balance out those competing interests, those competing cultural and religious preferences to make something that is fair and sensible for everybody.

Emily Buchanan:

Well, can we talk about hijabs in schools? In your speech last Monday, you spoke about aspects of a school's provision dictated by the preferences of a particular group whether that be uniform, curriculum or after school activiities, but why shouldn't parents whether they are religious or not be able to express a preference about what their child wears?

Amanda Spielman:

I start at the other end: we have for many years in this country had a default expectation that there is a school uniform that is something that is simple, age appropriate and that everybody wears so that nobody feels left out, nobody is marked off as different by reason of what they wear, and that's not something that is true in every country but that's something that we have. So if you unpick that then you get into a world where everbody wears what they want and you would probably have little girls wearing high heels, make up and jewellery  in classrooms - things that most people wouldn't be comforable seeing.

Emily Buchanan:

But that's not what people are talking about, is it? A lot of parents feel that what their child wears doesn't really affect their learning and they feel that if they're not allowed to wear the hijab that the government is somehow targetting Muslims in particular which of course alienates a group that you want to integrate.

Amanda Spielman:

And that's unfortunate because it's so clear that this is not a matter of religious requirement. It is very much a cultural preference. Remember, we are talking about very young children here, we're talking about children in the first half of primary school long before there is any age of religious expectation, so if you allow cultural preferences to determine what one group of children wear then effectively you have to apply that to all groups.

Emily Buchanan:

Would you prefer to have an approach more along the lines of what they have in France where religious face coverings are banned in public buildings including schools?

Amanda Spielman:

I think legislating is something that polarises and crystallises dissent. I think it's always much better to work to a degree of consensus and what we see is heads trying to exercise their responsibilities fairly and sensibly and that's what we at Ofsted are endeavouring to support.

Emily Buchanan:

Apart from clothing, what other aspects of the curriculum have you seen under threat from religious groups? I mean there's obviously evolution, but there are others that you have been concerned about ?

Amanda Spielman:

Yes, we've seen children being withdrawn from dance and music and drama. We've also seen in recent inspections things that are quite central to the national curriculum around areas of history, areas of science, thinks that most people would be quite surprised.

Emily Buchanan:

Do you think that inevitably, religous groups and religious preferences and even religious freedom has to be curtailed then?

Amanda Spielman:

I read and Adam Wagner piece in the Jewish Chronicle last week which I thought made a strong point that religious freedom isn't an absolute that trumps everything else. We exist in a framework of competing rights and perhaps what we need to discuss a bit more is very much the substance of my speech earlier this week is to recognise and acknowledge the place where different rights bump into each other and conflict and we would be better off having adult conversations about how those tensions ares best accommodated.

Ofsted's approach to Charedi schools has changed - for good reason Freedom of religion is not an absolute right, argues Adam Wagner

Emily Buchanan:

I suppose the other problem for you if you want to exert your muscular liberalism and give British values more clout is that these British values change all the time. I mean once upon a time Christian school teaching that marriage was between a man and a woman would have been fine but now that would be seen as against British values.

Amanda Spielman:

I think it's really important to stress tha ta vast majority of faith schools do a very good job. I'm talking about a very small subset of schools that struggle with this and I very much hope they can draw from the example of the other faith schools that do it so well, because there are so many that do.

Jewish school faces closure for refusing to teach its young girls transgender issues despite its religious ethos being praised four years ago
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/g00/news/article-4694610/School-faces-closure-refusing-transgender-issues.html

A rabbinical view on the idolatry of Christianity

1:49

Rabbi Mizrachi:

I warn Jews not to worship rabbis, not to worship all kinds of people, Christians the same thing: worshipping a man. Stupid! Not just stupid, stupid that creates tons of problems for them later on. Christians lose their share in the world to come just because they believe in JC. If they didn't believe in JC, more likely they keep the Seven Laws. They would believe in one God. They would not worship any idols. They would not murder. They know not to steal. Most Christians don't eat animals unless they are dead. They obey the police and the thing. They don't curse God. That's it. Keep the Seven laws. What messed up all Christians is their belief in JC. That's what's gonna lose them heaven when they die. Unbelievable! You understand what's going on here?

Most people who wish to identify with Christianity don't even know they are supposed to believe Christ is the co-equal of an eternal and omnipotent God. If they knew they would reject Christianity out of hand because most Westerners struggle with the idea of God as Creator, all the more so that Christ is the co-equal of this God.

If they claim to believe that that Christ is the co-equal of God, they are stupid.

If they only pretend to believe it to be Archbishop of Canterbury or Pope, they are corrupt. 

The promise to Christians is that they do not go to hell if they exhibit remorse for their sins provided they claim to believe in Christ's co-equal divinity with God on their death bed. 

For centuries they have managed to keep up this performance, but no longer. 

They would burn at the stake anyone who denied the Trinity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus

When it  was no longer illegal to deny the Trinity. they slowly ceased to believe in God.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_Trinity_Act_1813

Even the Americans had to quarantine the church from the state to avoid further Christian on Christian persecution in the New World. The Pilgrim Fathers after all left the Old World because of Christian on Christian persecution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States

Sadly, even in the New World, Christian on Christian religious persecution continued.

https://thehistoricpresent.com/2008/10/27/the-puritans-and-freedom-of-religion/

The Quakers, then, were a radical and alarming people who went into New England with the express mission to destroy the Puritan way and introduce their own religious beliefs. They were just as feverishly devoted to Quakerism as the Puritans were fanatically devoted to Puritanism. What we have are two radical groups with zero tolerance for other beliefs who were, once the Quakers entered New England, trapped in the same space. Persecution of the Quakers  followed, in Boston as it did in London.

It is only if we think that the 18th-century beliefs about religious tolerance enshrined in our Constitution came directly from the 17th century, then, that we can be dismayed to find no freedom of religion in Puritan New England. Almost no one in 17th-century Europe believed in freedom of religion or freedom of conscience. The Quakers did not, the Puritans did not. Almost all sects believed they alone had the truth of God and that they alone should exist. It took 150 years of religious co-existence in America to get to the point where freedom of religion could be put forward as a basic human right.

After two disastrous World Wars with Pyrrhic victories, they had a Sex Revolution after which it became generally accepted that only the stupid believed in God. 

That was when they threw out the baby of Biblical morality with the idolatrous bathwater of the Trinity and are now suffering the consequences of being cursed by God for disobeying His laws. 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+28&version=NIV

Curses for Disobedience15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.[a] 21 The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

36 The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.

38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail.

45 All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. 52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.

53 Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.

58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God— 59 the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64 Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. 68 The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

Parental warnings, Islam and Jewish affairs