Leviticus 26
26
The Reward of Obedience. 1#This chapter concludes the revelation of laws at Mount Sinai (cf. v. 46). Blessings and curses are also found at the end of Deuteronomy’s law collection (Dt 28). Similar lists of blessings and curses appear in the conclusions of ancient Near Eastern treaties. Do not make idols for yourselves. You shall not erect a carved image or a sacred stone for yourselves, nor shall you set up a carved stone for worship in your land;#Lv 19:4; Nm 33:52. for I, the Lord, am your God. 2Keep my sabbaths,#Lv 23:3. and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3#The blessings are concerned with the well-being of the nation and its land and involve agricultural bounty, national security, military success and population growth. #Dt 28:1–69. If you live in accordance with my statutes and are careful to observe my commandments, 4I will give you your rains in due season, so that the land will yield its crops, and the trees their fruit;#Dt 11:14; Ps 85:13; Ez 34:26–27. 5your threshing will last till vintage time, and your vintage till the time for sowing, and you will eat your fill of food, and live securely in your land.#Lv 25:18–19; Dt 12:10. 6I will establish peace in the land, and you will lie down to rest with no one to cause you anxiety. I will rid the country of ravenous beasts, and no sword shall sweep across your land. 7You will rout your enemies, and they shall fall before your sword. 8Five of you will put a hundred of your foes to flight, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, till your enemies fall before your sword.#Dt 32:30; Jos 23:10. 9I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful and numerous,#Gn 1:28; Ex 1:7. as I carry out my covenant with you. 10You shall eat the oldest stored harvest, and have to discard it to make room for the new.#Lv 25:22. 11#Ex 29:45; Ez 37:26–28; 2 Cor 6:16. I will set my tabernacle in your midst, and will not loathe you. 12Ever present in your midst, I will be your God, and you will be my people; 13I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more, breaking the bars of your yoke and making you walk erect.#Ez 34:27; Na 1:13.
The Punishment of Disobedience.#To encourage obedience, the list of punishments is longer than the blessings (cf. a similar proportion in Dt 28). The punishments are presented in waves (vv. 14–17, 18–20, 21–22, 23–26, 27–39), one group following another if the people do not return to obedience. Punishments involve sickness, pestilence, agricultural failure and famine, attack of wild animals, death of the people’s children, destruction of illicit and even licit cults, military defeat, panic, and exile. 14#Dt 28:15–69. But if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments, 15if you reject my statutes and loathe my decrees, refusing to obey all my commandments and breaking my covenant, 16then I, in turn, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you—with consumption and fever to dim the eyes and sap the life. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will consume the crop. 17I will turn against you, and you will be beaten down before your enemies#1 Kgs 8:33–34. and your foes will lord it over you. You will flee though no one pursues you.
18If even after this you do not obey me, I will increase the chastisement for your sins sevenfold,#Ps 79:12; Prv 6:31. 19to break your proud strength. I will make the sky above you as hard as iron, and your soil as hard as bronze, 20so that your strength will be spent in vain; your land will bear no crops, and its trees no fruit.
21If then you continue hostile, unwilling to obey me, I will multiply my blows sevenfold, as your sins deserve. 22I will unleash wild beasts against you, to rob you of your children and wipe out your livestock, till your population dwindles away and your roads become deserted.
23If, with all this, you still do not accept my discipline and continue hostile to me, 24#Jer 2:30; Ez 5:17; 14:17. I, too, will continue to be hostile to you and I, for my part, will smite you for your sins sevenfold. 25I will bring against you the sword, the avenger of my covenant. Though you then huddle together in your cities, I will send pestilence among you, till you are delivered to the enemy. 26When I break your staff of bread, ten women will need but one oven for baking your bread, and they shall dole it out to you by weight;#Is 9:19; Ez 4:16; 5:16; 14:13; Mi 6:14. and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.
27If, despite all this, you disobey and continue hostile to me, 28I will continue in my hostile rage toward you, and I myself will discipline you for your sins sevenfold, 29till you begin to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.#Lam 2:20. 30I will demolish your high places, overthrow your incense stands, and cast your corpses upon the corpses of your idols.#2 Chr 14:5; 34:3–4, 7; Ez 6:3–6. In my loathing of you, 31I will lay waste your cities and desolate your sanctuaries, refusing your sweet-smelling offerings. 32So devastated will I leave the land that your enemies who come to live there will stand aghast at the sight of it.#1 Kgs 9:8; Jer 9:11; 18:16; 19:8; 25:18. 33And you I will scatter among the nations#Ps 44:12; Jer 15:7; Ez 6:8. at the point of my drawn sword, leaving your countryside desolate and your cities deserted. 34Then shall the land, during the time it lies waste, make up its lost sabbaths, while you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land have rest and make up for its sabbaths#Lv 25:2; 2 Chr 36:21. 35during all the time that it lies desolate, enjoying the rest that you would not let it have on your sabbaths when you lived there.
36Those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies, I will make so fainthearted that the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and they shall run as if from the sword, and fall though no one pursues them; 37stumbling over one another as if to escape a sword, while no one is after them—so helpless will you be to take a stand against your foes! 38You shall perish among the nations, swallowed up in your enemies’ country. 39Those of you who survive will waste away in the lands of their enemies, for their own and their ancestors’ guilt.#Ez 4:17; 24:23; 33:10.
40#Even though the people may be severely punished, God will remember the covenant when the people repent. They will confess#Lv 16:21; Nm 5:7; Neh 1:6. their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors in their treachery against me and in their continued hostility toward me, 41so that I, too, had to be hostile to them and bring them into their enemies’ land. Then, when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac; and also my covenant with Abraham I will remember.#Ex 6:5; 2 Kgs 13:23; Ps 106:45; Ez 16:60. The land, too, I will remember. 43The land will be forsaken by them, that in its desolation without them, it may make up its sabbaths, and that they, too, may make good the debt of their guilt for having spurned my decrees and loathed my statutes. 44Yet even so, even while they are in their enemies’ land, I will not reject or loathe them to the point of wiping them out, thus making void my covenant with them; for I, the Lord, am their God. 45I will remember for them the covenant I made with their forebears, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations,#Ex 12:51. that I might be their God. I am the Lord.
46These are the statutes, decrees and laws which the Lord established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.#Lv 7:38; Nm 36:13.
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Leviticus 26: NABRE
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Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc
Leviticus 26
26
1 YOU SHALL make for yourselves no idols nor shall you erect a graven image, pillar, or obelisk, nor shall you place any figured stone in your land to which or on which to bow down; for I am the Lord your God.
2 You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them,
4 I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase and the trees of the field yield their fruit.
5 And your threshing [time] shall reach to the vintage and the vintage [time] shall reach to the sowing time, and you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.
6 I will give peace in the land; you shall lie down and none shall fill you with dread or make you afraid; and I will clear ferocious (wild) beasts out of the land, and no sword shall go through your land.
7 And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9 For I will be leaning toward you with favor and regard for you, rendering you fruitful, multiplying you, and establishing and ratifying My covenant with you. [II Kings 13:23.]
10 And you shall eat the [abundant] old store of produce long kept, and clear out the old [to make room] for the new.
11 I will set My dwelling in and among you, and My soul shall not despise or reject or separate itself from you.
12 And I will walk in and with and among you and will be your God, and you shall be My people.
13 I am the Lord your God, Who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should no more be slaves; and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect [as free men].
14 But if you will not hearken to Me and will not do all these commandments,
15 And if you spurn and despise My statutes, and if your soul despises and rejects My ordinances, so that you will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant,
16 I will do this: I will appoint over you [sudden] terror (trembling, trouble), even consumption and fever that consume and waste the eyes and make the [physical] life pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
17 I [the Lord] will set My face against you and you shall be defeated and slain before your enemies; they who hate you shall rule over you; you shall flee when no one pursues you. [I Sam. 4:10; 31:1.]
18 And if in spite of all this you still will not listen and be obedient to Me, then I will chastise and discipline you seven times more for your sins.
19 And I will break and humble your pride in your power, and I will make your heavens as iron [yielding no answer, no blessing, no rain] and your earth [as sterile] as brass. [I Kings 17:1.]
20 And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 If you walk contrary to Me and will not heed Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins.
22 I will loose the wild beasts of the field among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few so that your roads shall be deserted and desolate. [II Kings 17:25, 26.]
23 If by these means you are not turned to Me but determine to walk contrary to Me,
24 I also will walk contrary to you, and I will smite you seven times for your sins.
25 And I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute the vengeance [for the breaking] of My covenant; and you shall be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of the enemy. [Num. 16:49; II Sam. 24:15.]
26 When I break your staff of bread and cut off your supply of food, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall ration your bread and deliver it again by weight; and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. [Hag. 1:6.]
27 And if in spite of all this you will not listen and give heed to Me but walk contrary to Me,
28 Then I will walk contrary to you in wrath, and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. [II Kings 6:28, 29.]
30 And I will destroy your high places [devoted to idolatrous worship], and cut down your sun-images, and throw your dead bodies upon the [wrecked] bodies of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you [with deep and unutterable loathing]. [II Kings 23:8, 20.]
31 I will lay your cities waste, bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet and soothing odors [of offerings made by fire]. [II Kings 25:4-10; II Chron. 36:19.]
32 And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out [your enemies'] sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities a waste. [Ps. 44:11-14.]
34 Then shall the land [of Israel have the opportunity to] enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest, to enjoy and receive payments for its sabbaths [divinely ordained for it].
35 As long as it lies desolate and waste, it shall have rest, the rest it did not have in your sabbaths when you dwelt upon it. [II Chron. 36:21.]
36 As for those who are left of you, I will send dejection (lack of courage, a faintness) into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to hasty and tumultuous flight, and they shall flee as if from the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.
37 They shall stumble over one another as if to escape a sword when no one pursues them; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
38 You shall perish among the nations; the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
39 And those of you who are left shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away like them.
40 But if they confess their own and their fathers' iniquity in their treachery which they committed against Me–and also that because they walked contrary to Me
41 I also walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies–if then their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they then accept the punishment for their iniquity, [II Kings 24:10-14; Dan. 9:11-14.]
42 Then will I [earnestly] remember My covenant with Jacob, My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham, and [earnestly] remember the land. [Ps. 106:44-46.]
43 But the land shall be left behind them and shall enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they shall accept the punishment for their sins and make amends because they despised and rejected My ordinances and their soul scorned and rejected My statutes.
44 And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn and cast them away, neither will I despise and abhor them to destroy them utterly and to break My covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. [Deut. 4:31-35; Jer. 33:4, 5, 23-26; Rom. 11:2-5.]
45 But I will for their sake [earnestly] remember the covenant with their forefathers whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.
46 These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws which the Lord made between Him and the Israelites on Mount Sinai through Moses.
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