Leviticus 26
26
Blessings for Obedience
1“Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars, or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them. I am the Lord your God. 2You must keep my Sabbath days of rest and show reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3“If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 5Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land.
6“I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land. 7In fact, you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords. 8Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword.
9“I will look favorably upon you, making you fertile and multiplying your people. And I will fulfill my covenant with you. 10You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest! 11I will live among you, and I will not despise you. 12I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high.
Punishments for Disobedience
14“However, if you do not listen to me or obey all these commands, 15and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands, 16I will punish you. I will bring sudden terrors upon you—wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them. 17I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!
18“And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins. 19I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze. 20All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.
21“If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins. 22I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.
23“And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me, 24then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins. 25I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies. 26I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.
27“If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me, 28then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. 29Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols,#26:30 The Hebrew term (literally round things) probably alludes to dung. and I will despise you. 31I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me. 32Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see. 33I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed. 35As long as the land lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh year while you lived in it.
36“And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you. 37Though no one is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies. 38You will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your enemies. 39Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies’ lands because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
40“But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me. 41When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins. 42Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.
44“But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the Lord their God. 45For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”
46These are the decrees, regulations, and instructions that the Lord gave through Moses on Mount Sinai as evidence of the relationship between himself and the Israelites.
Currently Selected:
Leviticus 26: NLT
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
For more information about the NLT:
Leviticus 26
26
Blessings for Obeying the Lord
The Lord said:
1 #
Lv 19.3,4;
Ex 20.4; Dt 5.8; 16.21,22; 29.16-18. I am the Lord your God! So don't make or worship idols or images. 2Respect the Sabbath and honor the place where I am worshiped, because I am the Lord.
3 #
Dt 11.13-15; 28.1-14. Faithfully obey my laws, 4and I will send rain to make your crops grow and your trees produce fruit. 5Your harvest of grain and grapes will be so abundant, that you won't know what to do with it all. You will eat and be satisfied, and you will live in safety. 6I will bless your country with peace, and you will rest without fear. I will wipe out the dangerous animals and protect you from enemy attacks. 7You will chase and destroy your enemies, 8even if there are only 5 of you and 100 of them, or only 100 of you and 10,000 of them. 9I will treat you with such kindness that your nation will grow strong, and I will also keep my promises to you. 10Your barns will overflow with grain each year. 11I will live among you and never again look on you with disgust. 12#2 Co 6.16. I will walk with you—I will be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am the Lord your God, and I rescued you from Egypt, so that you would never again be slaves. I have set you free; now walk with your heads held high.
Punishment for Disobeying the Lord
The Lord said:
14-15 #
Dt 28.15-68. If you disobey me and my laws, and if you break our agreement, 16I will punish you terribly, and you will be ruined. You will be struck with incurable diseases and with fever that leads to blindness and depression. Your enemies will eat the crops you plant, 17and I will turn from you and let you be destroyed by your attackers. You will even run at the very rumor of attack. 18Then, if you still refuse to obey me, I will punish you seven times for each of your sins, 19until your pride is completely crushed. I will hold back the rain, so the sky above you will be like iron, and the ground beneath your feet will be like copper. 20All of your hard work will be for nothing—and there will be no harvest of grain or fruit.
21If you keep rebelling against me, I'll punish you seven times worse, just as your sins deserve! 22I'll send wild animals to attack you, and they will gobble up your children and livestock. So few of you will be left that your roads will be deserted.
23If you remain my enemies after this, 24I'll remain your enemy and punish you even worse. 25War will break out because you broke our agreement, and if you escape to your walled cities, I'll punish you with horrible diseases, and you will be captured by your enemies. 26You will have such a shortage of bread, that ten women will be able to bake their bread in the same oven. Each of you will get only a few crumbs, and you will go hungry.
27Then if you don't stop rebelling, 28I'll really get furious and punish you terribly for your sins! 29In fact, you will be so desperate for food that you will eat your own children. 30I'll destroy your shrines and tear down your incense altars, leaving your dead bodies piled on top of your idols. And you will be disgusting to me. 31I'll wipe out your towns and your places of worship and will no longer be pleased with the smell of your sacrifices. 32Your land will become so desolate that even your enemies who settle there will be shocked when they see it. 33After I destroy your towns and ruin your land with war, I'll scatter you among the nations.
34-35While you are prisoners in foreign lands, your own land will enjoy years of rest and refreshment, as it should have done each seventh year when you lived there. 36-37In the land of your enemies, you will tremble at the rustle of a leaf, as though it were a sword. And you will become so weak that you will stumble and fall over each other, even when no one is chasing you. 38Many of you will die in foreign lands, 39and others of you will waste away in sorrow as the result of your sins and the sins of your ancestors.
40-41Then suppose you realize that I turned against you and brought you to the land of your enemies because both you and your ancestors had stubbornly sinned against me. If you humbly confess what you have done and start living right, 42#Gn 28.13,14; Gn 26.3,4; Gn 17.7,8. I'll keep the promise I made to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will bless your land 43and let it rest during the time that you are in a foreign country, paying for your rebellion against me and my laws.
44 #
3 Macc 6.15. No matter what you have done, I am still the Lord your God, and I will never completely reject you or become absolutely disgusted with you there in the land of your enemies. 45While nations watched, I rescued your ancestors from Egypt so that I would be their God. Yes, I am your Lord, and I will never forget our agreement.
46Moses was on Mount Sinai when the Lord gave him these laws and teachings for the people of Israel.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.