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 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.
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