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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Vayikra (Lev) 26: CJB
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Learn More About Complete Jewish BibleLeviticus 26
26
Covenant blessings
1You must not make any idols, and do not set up any divine image or sacred pillar. You must not place any carved#26.1 Heb uncertain stone in your land, bowing down to it, because I am the LORD your God. 2You must keep my sabbaths and respect my sanctuary; I am the LORD.
3If you live according to my rules, keep my commands, and do them, 4I will give you rain at the proper time, the land will produce its yield, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 5Your threshing season will last until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will last until planting time. You will eat your fill of food and live securely in your land. 6I will grant peace in the land so that you can lie down without anyone frightening you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through it. 7You will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you in battle. 8Five of you will chase away a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase away ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you in battle. 9I will turn my face to you, will make you fruitful and numerous, and will keep my covenant with you. 10You will still be eating the previous year’s harvest when the time will come to clear it out to make room for the new! 11I will place my dwelling#26.11 Or tabernacle among you, and I will not despise you. 12I will walk around among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt’s land—who brought you out from being Egypt’s slaves. I broke your bonds and made you stand up straight.
Covenant curses
14But if you do not obey me and do not carry out all these commands— 15if you reject my rules and despise my regulations, not doing all my commands and breaking my covenant— 16then I will do the following to you:
I will bring horrific things:#26.16 Precise nature of the diseases uncertain wasting diseases and fevers that make the eyes fail and drain life away.
You will plant seed for no reason because your enemies will eat the food.
17I will turn my face against you: you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you; and you will run away even when no one is chasing you.
18If, despite all that, you still do not obey me, I will punish you for your sins seven more times: 19I will destroy your prideful power. I will turn your sky to iron and your land to bronze 20so that your strength will be spent for no reason: your land will not produce its yield, and the trees of the land won’t produce their fruit.
21If you continue to oppose me and are unwilling to obey me, I will strike you for your sins seven more times: 22I will send wild animals against you, and they will kill your children and destroy your livestock. They will make you so few in number that your roads will seem deserted.
23If, despite these things, you still do not accept my discipline and continue to oppose me, 24then I will continue to oppose you. I will strike you for your sins seven more times: 25I will bring the sword against you, avenging the breaking of the covenant.#26.25 Or executing covenant vengeance If you retreat into your cities, I will send a plague on you, and you will be handed over to the enemy. 26When I destroy your food supply, ten women will bake bread in a single oven, and they will ration out bread by weight. You will eat but will never get full.
27If, despite all this, you still do not obey me and continue to oppose me, 28then I will continue to oppose you—with anger! I will punish you for your sins seven more times: 29You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30I will eliminate your shrines, chop down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on the dead bodies of your idols. I will despise you. 31I will turn your cities into ruins, I will devastate your sanctuaries, and I will not smell the soothing smells of your offerings. 32I will personally devastate the land so much that your enemies who resettle it will be astonished by it. 33I will scatter you among the nations. I will unsheathe my sword against you. Your land will be devastated and your cities will be ruins.
34At that time, while it is devastated and you are in enemy territory, the land will enjoy its sabbaths. At that time, the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35During the whole time it is devastated, it will have the rest it didn’t have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36I will bring despair into the hearts of those of you who survive in enemy territory. Just the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to running, and they will run scared as if running from a sword! They will fall even when no one is chasing them! 37They will stumble over each other as they would before a sword, even though no one is chasing them! You will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38You will disappear among the nations—the land of your enemies will devour you. 39Any of you who do survive will rot in enemy territory on account of their guilty deeds. And they will rot too on account of their ancestors’ guilty deeds.
Covenant and restoration
40But if they confess their and their ancestors’ guilt for the wrongdoing they did to me, and for their continued opposition to me— 41which made me oppose them, so I took them into enemy territory—or if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make up for their guilt, 42then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will also remember my covenant with Isaac. And my covenant with Abraham. And I will remember the land. 43The land will be absent of them and will be enjoying its sabbaths while it lies devastated, free of them. They will be making up for their guilty deeds for no other reason than the fact that they rejected my regulations and despised my rules. 44But despite all that, when they are in enemy territory, I will not reject them or despise them to the point of totally destroying them, breaking my covenant with them by doing so, because I am the LORD their God. 45But for their sake I will remember the covenant with the first generation, the ones I brought out of Egypt’s land in the sight of all the nations, in order to be their God; I am the LORD.
46These are the rules, regulations, and instructions between the LORD and the Israelites that he gave through Moses on Mount Sinai.
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