Leviticus 26:1-46

  • Keep away from idolatry (1, 2)

  • Blessings for obedience (3-13)

  • Punishment for disobedience (14-46)

26  “‘You must not make worthless gods for yourselves,+ and you must not set up a carved image+ or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and you must not put a stone figure+ in your land in order to bow down toward it;+ for I am Jehovah your God. 2  You should keep my sabbaths and show reverence for* my sanctuary. I am Jehovah. 3  “‘If you continue walking in my statutes and keeping my commandments and you carry them out,+ 4  I will give you showers of rain at their proper time,+ and the land will yield its produce,+ and the trees of the field will give their fruit. 5  Your threshing season will extend until your grape harvest, and the grape harvest will extend until the sowing season; and you will eat your bread to satisfaction and dwell in security in your land.+ 6  I will put peace in the land,+ and you will lie down with no one making you afraid;+ and I will rid the land of vicious wild animals, and a sword of war will not pass through your land. 7  You will certainly pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. 8  Five of you will pursue 100, and 100 of you will pursue 10,000, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.+ 9  “‘I will direct my favor to* you and make you fruitful and multiply you,+ and I will keep my covenant with you.+ 10  While you are still eating the old produce of the preceding year, you will need to clear out the old to make way for the new. 11  And I will place my tabernacle in your midst,+ and I* will not reject you. 12  I will walk among you and be your God,+ and you for your part will be my people.+ 13  I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no longer, and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk with heads held high.* 14  “‘However, if you will not listen to me or keep all these commandments,+ 15  and if you reject my statutes,+ and if you* abhor my judicial decisions so that you do not keep all my commandments, and you violate my covenant,+ 16  I, for my part, will do the following to you: I will punish you with distress, with tuberculosis and burning fever, making your eyes fail and your life* waste away. You will sow your seed simply for nothing, for your enemies will eat it.+ 17  I will set my face against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies;+ and those who hate you will tread on you,+ and you will flee when no one is pursuing you.+ 18  “‘If even this does not make you listen to me, I will have to chastise you seven times as much for your sins. 19  I will break your stubborn pride and make your heavens like iron+ and your earth like copper. 20  You will exhaust your strength for nothing, as your land will not yield its produce,+ and the trees of the land will not produce fruit. 21  “‘But if you keep walking in opposition to me and refuse to listen to me, I will then have to strike you seven times as much, according to your sins. 22  I will send the wild animals of the field among you,+ and they will bereave you of children+ and annihilate your domestic animals and reduce your numbers, and your roads will be deserted.+ 23  “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction+ and you insist on walking in opposition to me, 24  then I too will walk in opposition to you, and I myself will strike you seven times for your sins. 25  I will bring an avenging sword upon you for breaking the covenant.+ If you gather yourselves into your cities, I will send disease into your midst,+ and you will be given into the hand of an enemy.+ 26  When I destroy your supply* of bread,*+ ten women will be able to bake your bread in only one oven and then ration your bread by weight;+ and you will eat but you will not be satisfied.+ 27  “‘If in spite of this you will not listen to me and you insist on walking in opposition to me, 28  I will intensify my opposition to you,+ and I myself will have to chastise you seven times for your sins. 29  So you will have to eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.+ 30  I will annihilate your sacred high places+ and cut down your incense stands and pile your carcasses on the carcasses of your disgusting idols,*+ and I* will turn away from you in disgust.+ 31  I will give your cities to the sword+ and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell the pleasing* aromas of your sacrifices. 32  I myself will make the land desolate,+ and your enemies who are dwelling in it will stare in amazement over it.+ 33  And I will scatter you among the nations,+ and I will unsheathe a sword after you;+ and your land will be made desolate,+ and your cities will be devastated. 34  “‘At that time the land will pay off its sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest,* as it must repay its sabbaths.+ 35  All the days it lies desolate it will rest, because it did not rest during your sabbaths when you were dwelling on it. 36  “‘As for those who survive,+ I will fill their hearts with despair in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a blowing leaf will cause them to flee, and they will flee like someone running from the sword and fall without anyone pursuing them.+ 37  They will stumble over one another like those running from a sword, though no one is pursuing them. You will not be able to resist your enemies.+ 38  You will perish among the nations,+ and the land of your enemies will consume you. 39  Those of you who remain will be left to rot in the lands of your enemies+ because of your error. Yes, they will rot away because of the errors of their fathers.+ 40  Then they will confess their own error+ and the error and unfaithfulness of their fathers and admit that they behaved unfaithfully by walking in opposition to me.+ 41  Then I also walked in opposition to them+ by bringing them into the land of their enemies.+ “‘Perhaps then their uncircumcised* heart will be humbled,+ and then they will pay off their error. 42  And I will remember my covenant with Jacob,+ and my covenant with Isaac,+ and I will remember my covenant with Abraham,+ and I will remember the land. 43  While the land was abandoned by them, it was paying off its sabbaths+ and lying desolate without them, and they were paying for their error, because they rejected my judicial decisions and they* abhorred my statutes.+ 44  But despite all of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will never completely reject them+ nor cast them away to the point of exterminating them, which would violate my covenant+ with them, for I am Jehovah their God. 45  For their sakes I will remember the covenant with their ancestors+ whom I brought out of the land of Egypt under the eyes of the nations,+ in order to prove myself their God. I am Jehovah.’” 46  These are the regulations, the judicial decisions, and the laws that Jehovah established between himself and the Israelites on Mount Siʹnai through Moses.+

Footnotes

Or “stand in awe of.” Lit., “fear.”
Lit., “will turn to.”
Or “my soul.”
Lit., “walk erect.”
Or “your souls.”
Or “soul.”
Or “food.”
Lit., “rod.” Possibly referring to rods used for storing bread.
The Hebrew term may be related to a word for “dung” and is used as an expression of contempt.
Or “my soul.”
Or “appeasing; soothing.” Lit., “restful.”
Or “keep sabbath.”
Or “stubborn.”
Or “their souls.”