Yeah. Maybe encouraging them is the better word. The problem wasn't with the promises of Deuteronomy 28, but rather the fact that the Jews had turned these into a means of judging who was righteous and who was not, based on their own presumptuousness in the moment. The story of Job was meant to teach (even in OT times) that one can only judge how blessed a man is by his final state, AFTER all is said and done. So, too, with the NT apostles. They understood that Heaven (their final state) was where their true inheritance was waiting for them.
So "blessings and cursings" still held true, but the teaching was never to judge things by appearances, or prematurely (James 2:5).