Leviticus 26
26
Blessings for Obedience
1“ ‘You#Plural throughout the entire chapter shall not make for yourselves idols and divine images, and you shall not raise up stone pillars for yourselves, and you shall not put a sculptured stone in your land in order to#Or “to” worship before it, because I am Yahweh your God.
2“ ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and you shall revere my sanctuary; I am Yahweh.
3“ ‘If you walk in my statutes and you keep my commands and you do them, 4then#Or “and” I will give you rains in their time, and the land shall give its produce, and the trees of the field shall give their fruit. 5And for you the threshing season shall overtake the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall overtake the sowing, and you shall eat your food to your fill#Literally “to contentment” and you shall live securely#Literally “with confidence” in your land. 6And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and there shall not be anybody who makes you afraid,#Literally “who makes afraid” or “making afraid” and I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword shall pass through your land.#Literally “a sword shall not pass through in your land” 7And you shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.#Literally “to your faces” 8And five of#Hebrew “from” you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of#Hebrew “from” you shall pursue a myriad;#Or “ten thousand” and your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.#Literally “to your faces” 9And I will turn to you, and I will make you fruitful, and I will make you numerous; and I will keep my covenant with you. 10And you shall eat old grain,#Literally “old what is stale” and you shall clear away the old before the new.#Literally “old from the faces of new you shall bring out” 11And I will put my dwelling place in your midst, and my inner self#Or “soul” shall not abhor you. 12And I will walk about in your midst, and I shall be your God,#Or “as a God for you” and you shall be my people.#Or “as a people for me” 13I am Yahweh, your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke, and I caused you to walk erectly.
Punishment for Disobedience
14“ ‘But#Or “And” if you do not listen to me and you do not carry out#Or “you do not do” or “you do not observe” or “you do not perform” all these commands, 15and if you reject my statutes and if your inner self#Or “soul” abhors my regulations, to not carry out#Or “do” or “observe” or “perform” all my commands by your breaking my covenant, 16I in turn#Literally “also” or “indeed” will do this to you: then#Or “and” I will summon onto you horror, the wasting disease, and the fever that wastes eyes and that drains away life; and you shall sow your seed in vain,#Literally “for the emptiness” and your enemies shall eat it. 17And I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated before#Literally “to the faces of” your enemies; and your haters shall rule over you, and you shall flee away, but#Or “and” there shall not be anybody who is pursuing#Literally “who pursues” or “pursuing” you.
18“ ‘And if in spite of these things you do not listen to me, then#Or “and” I will continue to discipline you seven times for your sins. 19And I will break the pride of your strength; and I will make your heaven like iron#Or “iron ore” and your land like copper. 20And your strength shall be consumed in vain;#Literally “to the emptiness” and your land shall not give its produce, and the land’s trees shall not give their fruit.
21“ ‘And if you go against me in hostility and you are not willing to listen to me, then#Or “and” I will add a plague onto you seven times according to your sins. 22And I will send wild animals#Literally “the animals of the field” out among you, and they shall make you childless, and they shall cut down your domestic animals, and they shall make you fewer; and your roads shall be desolate.
23“ ‘And if you do not accept correction from#Hebrew “for” or “to” me through these things, but#Or “and” you go against me in hostility, 24then#Or “and” I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun will also go against you in hostility, and I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun also will strike you seven times for your sins. 25And I will bring upon you a sword that seeks vengeance for the covenant, and you shall be gathered to your cities; and I will send a plague in your midst, and you shall be given into the hand of an enemy. 26At my breaking the supply#Literally “staff” of bread#Or “food” for you, then#Or “and” ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall return your bread by weight; and you shall eat it, and you shall not be satisfied.
27“ ‘And if through this you do not listen to me and you go against me in hostility, 28then#Or “and” I will go against you in hostile anger, and also#Or “surely” I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29And you shall eat the flesh of your sons; and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat. 30And I will destroy your high places, and I will cut down your incense altars, and I will place your corpses on your idols’ corpses; and my inner self#Or “soul” shall abhor you. 31And I will lay your cities in ruins, and I will lay waste your sanctuaries; and I shall not smell your sacrifices’#Implied by the use of the same phraseology in regard to the sacrifices in the early chapters of the book appeasing fragrance. 32And I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun will lay waste the land, and your enemies who are living in it shall be appalled over it. 33And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword behind you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a ruin. 34Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its lying desolate, and you shall be in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths. 35All the days of its lying desolate it shall rest for the time#Implied by context that it had not rested during your Sabbaths while you were living on it. 36As for#Or “And” the ones who remain among you, I will bring#Or “and I will bring” fearfulness in their hearts in the land of their enemies; and a sound of a windblown leaf shall pursue them, and they shall flee like flight before#Literally “of” a sword, and they shall fall, but#Or “and” there shall not be a pursuer. 37And they shall stumble over one another#Literally “a man on his brother” as from before#Literally “from the faces of” a sword, but#Or “and” there shall not be a pursuer; and you shall have no resistance#Literally “it shall not be for you resistance” before#Literally “to the faces of” your enemies. 38And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you. 39And because of their guilt, the ones among you who remain shall decay in the land of their enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their ancestors,#Or “fathers” they shall decay with them.
40“ ‘But#Or “And” when they confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors#Or “fathers” in their infidelity that they displayed against me, and moreover that they went against me in hostility— 41I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun also#Or “surely” went against them in hostility, and I brought them into the land of their enemies—or if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and then they pay for their guilt, 42I will remember#Or “and I will remember” my covenant with Jacob; and I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43And the land shall be deserted by them, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths in its being desolate from them, and they themselves#Emphatic personal pronoun must pay for their guilt, simply because#Literally “because and in because” they rejected my regulations, and their inner self#Or “soul” abhorred my statutes. 44And in spite of#Literally “also even” or “moreover also” or “moreover even” this, when they are#Literally “in their being” in the land of their enemies I will not reject them, and I will not abhor them to destroy them, to break my covenant with them, because I am Yahweh their God. 45And I will remember the first covenant for them#Or “on behalf of them” or “on their behalf”—whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of#Literally “to the eyes of” or “for the eyes of” the nations to be their God.#Literally “to be for them for God” or “to be for them as a God” I am Yahweh.’ ”
46These are the rules and the regulations and the laws that Yahweh gave between himself and the Israelites#Literally “sons/children of Israel” on Mount Sinai#Literally “the mountain of Sinai” through#Literally “in/by the hand of” Moses.
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Leviticus 26: LEB
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Leviticus 26
26
1“Don’t make idols for yourselves; don’t set up an image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and don’t place a carved stone in your land that you can bow down to in worship. I am God, your God.
2“Keep my Sabbaths; treat my Sanctuary with reverence. I am God.
“If You Live by My Decrees . . . ”
3-5“If you live by my decrees and obediently keep my commandments, I will send the rains in their seasons, the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. You will thresh until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time; you’ll have more than enough to eat and will live safe and secure in your land.
6-10“I’ll make the country a place of peace—you’ll be able to go to sleep at night without fear; I’ll get rid of the wild beasts; I’ll eliminate war. You’ll chase out your enemies and defeat them: Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand and do away with them. I’ll give you my full attention: I’ll make sure you prosper, make sure you grow in numbers, and keep my covenant with you in good working order. You’ll still be eating from last year’s harvest when you have to clean out the barns to make room for the new crops.
11-13“I’ll set up my residence in your neighborhood; I won’t avoid or shun you; I’ll stroll through your streets. I’ll be your God; you’ll be my people. I am God, your personal God who rescued you from Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I ripped off the harness of your slavery so that you can move about freely.
“But If You Refuse to Obey Me . . . ”
14-17“But if you refuse to obey me and won’t observe my commandments, despising my decrees and holding my laws in contempt by your disobedience, making a shambles of my covenant, I’ll step in and pour on the trouble: debilitating disease, high fevers, blindness, your life leaking out bit by bit. You’ll plant seed but your enemies will eat the crops. I’ll turn my back on you and stand by while your enemies defeat you. People who hate you will govern you. You’ll run scared even when there’s no one chasing you.
18-20“And if none of this works in getting your attention, I’ll discipline you seven times over for your sins. I’ll break your strong pride: I’ll make the skies above you like a sheet of tin and the ground under you like cast iron. No matter how hard you work, nothing will come of it: No crops out of the ground, no fruit off the trees.
21-22“If you defy me and refuse to listen, your punishment will be seven times more than your sins: I’ll set wild animals on you; they’ll rob you of your children, kill your cattle, and decimate your numbers until you’ll think you are living in a ghost town.
23-26“And if even this doesn’t work and you refuse my discipline and continue your defiance, then it will be my turn to defy you. I, yes I, will punish you for your sins seven times over: I’ll let war loose on you, avenging your breaking of the covenant; when you huddle in your cities for protection, I’ll send a deadly epidemic on you and you’ll be helpless before your enemies; when I cut off your bread supply, ten women will bake bread in one oven and ration it out. You’ll eat, but barely—no one will get enough.
27-35“And if this—even this!—doesn’t work and you still won’t listen, still defy me, I’ll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you, punishing you for your sins seven times over: famine will be so severe that you’ll end up cooking and eating your sons in stews and your daughters in barbecues; I’ll smash your sex-and-religion shrines and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, and then stack your corpses and the idol-corpses in the same piles—I’ll abhor you; I’ll turn your cities into rubble; I’ll clean out your sanctuaries; I’ll hold my nose at the “pleasing aroma” of your sacrifices. I’ll turn your land into a lifeless moonscape—your enemies who come in to take over will be shocked at what they see. I’ll scatter you all over the world and keep after you with the point of my sword in your backs. There’ll be nothing left in your land, nothing going on in your cities. With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies, the land, empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years. All the time it’s left there empty, the land will get rest, the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there.
36-39“As for those among you still alive, I’ll give them over to fearful timidity—even the rustle of a leaf will throw them into a panic. They’ll run here and there, back and forth, as if running for their lives even though no one is after them, tripping and falling over one another in total confusion. You won’t stand a chance against an enemy. You’ll perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will eat you up. Any who are left will slowly rot away in the enemy lands. Rot. And all because of their sins, their sins compounded by their ancestors’ sins.
“On the Other Hand, If They Confess . . . ”
40-42“On the other hand, if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, their treacherous betrayal, the defiance that set off my defiance that sent them off into enemy lands; if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sin, I’ll remember my covenant with Jacob, I’ll remember my covenant with Isaac, and, yes, I’ll remember my covenant with Abraham. And I’ll remember the land.
43-45“The land will be empty of them and enjoy its Sabbaths while they’re gone. They’ll pay for their sins because they refused my laws and treated my decrees with contempt. But in spite of their behavior, while they are among their enemies I won’t reject or abhor or destroy them completely. I won’t break my covenant with them: I am God, their God. For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I, with all the nations watching, brought out of Egypt in order to be their God. I am God.”
46These are the decrees, laws, and instructions that God established between himself and the People of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.