Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.
- KJV Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand:
- NKJV Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand.
- NASB Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing you can do.
- NLT You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Their children will be carried off to other peoples while they watch helplessly, powerless to act.
Overview
The agony of seeing one's children enslaved with no power to intervene is among the bitterest curses. This foreshadows the trauma of exile and captivity. The helpless longing portrays the deep grief that follows abandonment of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 21
- Joel 3:6You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, to send them far from their homeland.
- Deut 28:41You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.
- 2 Chr 29:9For behold, this is why our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and daughters and wives are in captivity.
- Job 17:5If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.
- Ps 119:82My eyes fail, looking for Your promise; I ask, “When will You comfort me?”
- Lam 5:17Because of this, our hearts are faint; because of these, our eyes grow dim—
- Mic 4:10Writhe in agony, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. For now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies!
- Deut 28:65Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.
- Jer 16:2–4“You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.”
- Job 11:20But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; they will hope for their last breath.”
- Ezek 24:25And you, son of man, know that on the day I take away their stronghold, their pride and joy—the desire of their eyes which uplifted their souls—and their sons and daughters as well,
- Ps 119:123My eyes fail, looking for Your salvation, and for Your righteous promise.
- Num 21:29Woe to you, O Moab! You are destroyed, O people of Chemosh! He gave up his sons as refugees, and his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.
- Neh 5:2–5Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous. We must get grain in order to eat and stay alive.”
- Isa 38:14I chirp like a swallow or crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak as I look upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security.”
- Deut 28:18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.
- Amos 5:27Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.
- Ps 69:3I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
- Lam 2:11My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- Jer 15:7–9I will scatter them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land. I will bereave and destroy My people who have not turned from their ways.
- Lam 4:17All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 28:32 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.