Leviticus 26
26
Rewards for Obeying God
1“ ‘Don’t make idols for yourselves or set up statues or memorials. Don’t put stone statues in your land to bow down to, because I am the Lord your God.
2“ ‘Remember my Sabbaths, and respect my Holy Place. I am the Lord.
3“ ‘If you remember my laws and commands and obey them, 4I will give you rains at the right season; the land will produce crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 5Your threshing will continue until the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will continue until it is time to plant. Then you will have plenty to eat and live safely in your land. 6I will give peace to your country; you will lie down in peace, and no one will make you afraid. I will keep harmful animals out of your country, and armies will not pass through it.
7“ ‘You will chase your enemies and defeat them, killing them with your sword. 8Five of you will chase a hundred men; a hundred of you will chase ten thousand men. You will defeat your enemies and kill them with your sword.
9“ ‘Then I will show kindness to you and let you have many children; I will keep my agreement with you. 10You will have enough crops to last for more than a year. When you harvest the new crops, you will have to throw out the old ones to make room for them. 11Also I will place my Holy Tent among you, and I will not turn away from you. 12I will walk with you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves. I broke the heavy weights that were on your shoulders and let you walk proudly again.
Punishment for Not Obeying God
14“ ‘But if you do not obey me and keep all my commands, 15and if you turn away from my rules and hate my laws, refusing to obey all my commands, you have broken our agreement. 16As a result, I will do this to you: I will cause terrible things to happen to you. I will cause you to have disease and fever that will destroy your eyes and slowly kill you. You will not have success when you plant your seed, and your enemy will eat your crops. 17I will be against you, and your enemies will defeat you. These people who hate you will rule over you, and you will run away even when no one is chasing you.
18“ ‘If after all this you still do not obey me, I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19I will break your great pride, and I will make the sky like iron and the earth like bronze. 20You will work hard, but it will not help. Your land will not grow any crops, and your trees will not give their fruit.
21“ ‘If you still turn against me and refuse to obey me, I will beat you seven times harder. The more you sin, the more you will be punished. 22I will send wild animals to attack you, and they will take your children away from you and destroy your cattle. They will make you so few in number the roads will be empty.
23“ ‘If you don’t learn your lesson after all these things, and if you still turn against me, 24I will also turn against you. I will punish you seven more times for your sins. 25You broke my agreement, and I will punish you. I will bring armies against you, and if you go into your cities for safety, I will cause diseases to spread among you so that your enemy will defeat you. 26There will be very little bread to eat; ten women will be able to cook all your bread in one oven. They will measure each piece of bread, and you will eat, but you will still be hungry.
27“ ‘If you still refuse to listen to me and still turn against me, 28I will show my great anger; I will punish you seven more times for your sins. 29You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. 30I will destroy your places where gods are worshiped and cut down your incense altars. I will pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols. I will hate you. 31I will destroy your cities and make your holy places empty, and I will not smell the pleasing smell of your offerings. 32I will make the land empty so that your enemies who come to live in it will be shocked at it. 33I will scatter you among the nations, and I will pull out my sword and destroy you. Your land will become empty, your cities a waste. 34When you are taken to your enemy’s country, your land will finally get its rest. It will enjoy its time of rest all the time it lies empty. 35During the time the land is empty, it will have the rest you should have given it while you lived in it.
36“ ‘Those of you who are left alive will lose their courage in the land of their enemies. They will be frightened by the sound of a leaf being blown by the wind. They will run as if someone were chasing them with a sword, and they will fall even when no one is chasing them. 37They will fall over each other, as if someone were chasing them with a sword, even though no one is chasing them. You will not be strong enough to stand up against your enemies. 38You will die among other nations and disappear in your enemies’ countries. 39So those who are left alive will rot away in their enemies’ countries because of their sins. They will also rot away because of their ancestors’ sins.
There Is Always Hope
40“ ‘But maybe the people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors; maybe they will admit they turned against me and sinned against me, 41which made me turn against them and send them into the land of their enemies. If these disobedient people are sorry for what they did and accept punishment for their sin, 42I will remember my agreement with Jacob, my agreement with Isaac, and my agreement with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43The land will be left empty by its people, and it will enjoy its time of rest as it lies bare without them. Then those who are left alive will accept the punishment for their sins. They will learn that they were punished because they hated my laws and refused to obey my rules. 44But even though this is true, I will not turn away from them when they are in the land of their enemies. I will not hate them so much that I completely destroy them and break my agreement with them, because I am the Lord their God. 45For their good I will remember the agreement with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt so I could become their God; the other nations saw these things. I am the Lord.’ ”
46These are the laws, rules, and teachings the Lord made between himself and the Israelites through Moses at Mount Sinai.
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Leviticus 26: NCV
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The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Vayikra (Lev) 26
26
1“‘You are not to make yourselves any idols, erect a carved statue or a standing-stone, or place any carved stone anywhere in your land in order to bow down to it. I am Adonai your God.
2“‘Keep my Shabbats, and revere my sanctuary; I am Adonai.
Haftarah B’har: Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 32:6–27
B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah B’har: Luke 4:16–21; 1 Corinthians 7:21–24; Galatians 6:7–10
Parashah 33: B’chukkotai (By my regulations) 26:3–27:34
[In regular years read with Parashah 32, in leap years read separately]
3“‘If you live by my regulations, observe my mitzvot and obey them; 4then I will provide the rain you need in its season, the land will yield its produce, and the trees in the field will yield their fruit. 5Your threshing time will extend until the grape harvest, and your grape harvesting will extend until the time for sowing seed. You will eat as much food as you want and live securely in your land.
(LY: ii) 6“‘I will give shalom in the land — you will lie down to sleep unafraid of anyone. I will rid the land of wild animals. The sword will not go through your land. 7You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before your sword. 8Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand — your enemies will fall before your sword.
9“‘I will turn toward you, make you productive, increase your numbers and uphold my covenant with you. (RY: v, LY: iii) 10You will eat all you want from last year’s harvest and throw out what remains of the old to make room for the new. 11I will put my tabernacle among you, and I will not reject you, 12but I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, so that you can walk upright.
14“‘But if you will not listen to me and obey all these mitzvot, 15if you loathe my regulations and reject my rulings, in order not to obey all my mitzvot but cancel my covenant; 16then I, for my part, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you — wasting disease and chronic fever to dim your sight and sap your strength. You will sow your seed for nothing, because your enemies will eat the crops. 17I will set my face against you — your enemies will defeat you, those who hate you will hound you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you.
18If these things don’t make you listen to me, then I will discipline you seven times over for your sins. 19I will break the pride you have in your own power. I will make your sky like iron, your soil like bronze — 20you will spend your strength in vain, because the land will not yield its produce or the trees in the field their fruit.
21“‘Yes, if you go against me and don’t listen to me, I will increase your calamities sevenfold, according to your sins. 22I will send wild animals among you; they will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock and reduce your numbers, until your roads are deserted.
23“‘If, in spite of all this, you refuse my correction and still go against me; 24then I too will go against you; and I, yes I, will strike you seven times over for your sins. 25I will bring a sword against you which will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be huddled inside your cities, I will send sickness among you, and you will be handed over to the power of the enemy. 26I will cut off your supply of bread, so that ten women will bake your bread in one oven and dole out your bread by weight, and you will eat but not be satisfied.
27“‘And if, for all this, you still will not listen to me, but go against me; 28then I will go against you furiously, and I also will chastise you yet seven times more for your sins. 29You will eat the flesh of your own sons, you will eat the flesh of your own daughters. 30I will destroy your high places, cut down your pillars for sun-worship, and throw your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols; and I will detest you. 31I will lay waste to your cities and make your sanctuaries desolate, so as not to smell your fragrant aromas. 32I will desolate the land, so that your enemies living in it will be astounded by it. 33You I will disperse among the nations, and I will draw out the sword in pursuit after you; your land will be a desolation and your cities a wasteland. 34Then, at last, the land will be paid its Shabbats. As long as it lies desolate and you are in the lands of your enemies, the land will rest and be repaid its Shabbats. 35Yes, as long as it lies desolate it will have rest, the rest it did not have during your Shabbats, when you lived there. 36As for those of you who are left, I will fill their hearts with anxiety in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will frighten them, so that they will flee as one flees from the sword and fall when no one is pursuing. 37Yes, with no one pursuing they will stumble over each other as if fleeing the sword — you will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38And among the nations you will perish; the land of your enemies will devour you.
39Those of you who remain will pine away in the lands of your enemies from guilt over your misdeeds and those of your ancestors. 40Then they will confess their misdeeds and those of their ancestors which they committed against me in their rebellion; they will admit that they went against me. 41At that time I will be going against them, bringing them into the lands of their enemies. But if their uncircumcised hearts will grow humble, and they are paid the punishment for their misdeeds; 42then I will remember my covenant with Ya‘akov, also my covenant with Yitz’chak and my covenant with Avraham; and I will remember the land. 43For the land will lie abandoned without them, and it will be paid its Shabbats while it lies desolate without them; and they will be paid the punishment for their misdeeds, because they rejected my rulings and loathed my regulations. 44Yet, in spite of all that, I will not reject them when they are in the lands of their enemies, nor will I loathe them to the point of utterly destroying them and thus break my covenant with them, because I am Adonai their God. 45Rather, for their sakes, I will remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt — with the nations watching — so that I might be their God; I am Adonai.’”
46These are the laws, rulings and teachings that Adonai himself gave to the people of Isra’el on Mount Sinai through Moshe.
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