Leviticus 26
26
Rewards for Obeying God
1“Don’t make idols for yourselves. Don’t set up statues or memorial stones in your land to bow down to, because I am the Lord your God!
2“Remember my special days of rest#26:2 special days of rest Or “Sabbaths.” This might mean Saturday, or it might mean all the special days when the people were not supposed to work. and honor my holy place. I am the Lord.
3“Remember my laws and commands, and obey them. 4If you do these things, I will give you rains at the time they should come. The land will grow crops and the trees of the field will grow their fruit. 5Your threshing will continue until it is time to gather grapes. And your grape gathering will continue until it is time to plant. Then you will have plenty to eat. And you will live safely in your land. 6I will give peace to your country. You will lie down in peace. No one will come to make you afraid. I will keep harmful animals out of your country. And armies will not come through your country.
7“You will chase your enemies and defeat them. You will kill them with your swords. 8Five of you will chase 100 men, and 100 of you will chase 10,000 men. You will defeat your enemies and kill them with your sword.
9“Then I will turn to you. I will let you have many children. I will keep my agreement with you. 10You will have enough crops to last for more than a year. You will harvest the new crops. But then you will have to throw out the old crops to make room for the new crops. 11Also, I will place my Holy Tent among you. 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. You were slaves in Egypt, but I brought you out of Egypt. You were bent low from the heavy weights you carried as slaves, but I broke the poles that were on your shoulders. I let you walk proudly again.
Punishment for Not Obeying God
14“But if you don’t obey me and all my commands, bad things will happen to you. 15If you refuse to obey my laws and commands, you have broken my agreement. 16If you do that, I will cause terrible things to happen to you. I will cause you to have disease and fever. They will destroy your eyes and take away your life. You will not have success when you plant your seed. And your enemies will eat your crops. 17I will be against you, so your enemies will defeat you. These enemies will hate you and rule over you. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.
18“After these things, if you still don’t obey me, I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19And I will also destroy the great cities that make you proud. The skies will not give rain, and the earth will not produce crops.#26:19 The skies … crops Literally, “Your skies will be like iron, your land like bronze.” 20You will work hard, but it will not help. Your land will not give any crops, and your trees will not grow 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 against you. They will take your children away from you. They will destroy your animals. They will kill many of your people. The roads will all be empty.
23“If you don’t learn your lesson after all this, and if you still turn against me, 24then I will also turn against you. I—yes, I myself—will punish you seven times for your sins. 25You will have broken my agreement, so I will punish you. I will bring armies against you. You will go into your cities for safety, but I will cause diseases to spread among you. And your enemies will defeat you. 26I will give you a share of the grain left in that city. But there will be very little food to eat. Ten women will be able to cook all their bread in one oven. They will measure each piece of bread. You will eat, but you will still be hungry.
27“If you still refuse to listen to me, and if you still turn against me, 28then I will really show my anger! I—yes, I myself—will punish you seven times for your sins. 29You will become so hungry that you will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. 30I will destroy your high places. I will cut down your incense altars. I will put your dead bodies on the dead bodies of your idols. You will be disgusting to me. 31I will destroy your cities. I will make your holy places empty. I will stop smelling your offerings. 32I will make your land empty. And your enemies who come to live there will be shocked at it. 33I will scatter you among the nations. I will pull out my sword and destroy you. Your land will become empty, and your cities will be destroyed.
34“You will be taken to your enemy’s country. Your country will be empty. So your land will finally get its rest. The land will enjoy its time of rest. 35During the time that the land is empty, it will get the time of rest that you did not give it while you lived there. 36The survivors will lose their courage in the land of their enemies. They will be afraid of everything. They will run around like a leaf blown by the wind. They will run as if someone is chasing them with a sword. They will fall even when no one is chasing them. 37They will run as if someone is chasing them with a sword. They will fall over each other—even when no one is chasing them.
“You will not be strong enough to stand up against your enemies. 38You will be lost in other nations. You will disappear in the land of your enemies. 39So the survivors will rot away in their sin in their enemies’ countries. They will rot away in their sins just as their ancestors did.
There Is Always Hope
40“But maybe the people will confess their sins. And maybe they will confess the sins of their ancestors. Maybe they will admit that they turned against me. Maybe they will admit that they sinned against me. 41Maybe they will admit that I turned against them and brought them into the land of their enemies. These people will be like strangers to me. But maybe they will become humble#26:41 These people … humble Literally, “If they humble their uncircumcised heart.” and accept the punishment for their sin. 42If they do, I will remember my agreement with Jacob. I will remember my agreement with Isaac. I will remember my agreement with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
43“The land will be empty. The land will enjoy its time of rest. Then the survivors 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. 44They have sinned. But if they come to me for help, I will not turn away from them. I will listen to them, even if they are in the land of their enemies. I will not completely destroy them. I will not break my agreement with them, because I am the Lord their God. 45For them, I will remember the agreement with their ancestors. I brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt so that I could become their God. The other nations saw these things. I am the Lord.”
46These are the laws, rules, and teachings that the Lord gave to the Israelites. These laws are the agreement between the Lord and the Israelites. The Lord gave these laws to Moses at Mount Sinai.
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Leviticus 26: ERV
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Leviticus 26
26
Blessings of Obedience
1‘You shall not make for yourselves idols, nor shall you set up for yourselves an image or a sacred pillar, nor shall you place a figured stone in your land to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God. 2You shall keep My sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary; I am the Lord. 3If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, 4then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. 5Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land. 6I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down with no one making you tremble. I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. 7But you will chase your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword; 8five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 9So I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will confirm My covenant with you. 10You will eat the old supply and clear out the old because of the new. 11Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject you. 12I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. 13I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
Penalties of Disobedience
14‘But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments, 15if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant, 16I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. 17I will set My face against you so that you will be struck down before your enemies; and those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you. 18If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19I will also break down your pride of power; I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. 20Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
21‘If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins. 22I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie deserted.
23‘And if by these things you are not turned to Me, but act with hostility against Me, 24then I will act with hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you seven times for your sins. 25I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, so that you shall be delivered into enemy hands. 26When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread #Lit by weightin rationed amounts, so that you will eat and not be satisfied.
27‘Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, 28then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. 29Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. 30I then will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains on the remains of your idols, for My soul shall abhor you. 31I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. 32I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. 33You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.
34‘Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it. 36As for those of you who may be left, I will also bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will chase them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee as though from the sword, and they will fall. 37They will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength to stand up before your enemies. 38But you will perish among the nations, and your enemies’ land will consume you. 39So those of you who may be left will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their forefathers they will rot away with them.
40‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me— 41I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity, 42then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. 43For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes. 44Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. 45But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.’ ”
46These are the statutes and ordinances and laws which the Lord established between Himself and the sons of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai.
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