Reject His Statutes and He Will Strike You

¹⁴ ‘^(A)But if you do not obey Me and do not do all these commandments, ¹⁵ if, instead, you ^(B)reject My statutes, and if your soul loathes My judgments so as not to do all My commandments and so ^(C)break My covenant, ¹⁶ I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a ^(D)sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the ^(E)soul to pine away; also, ^(F)you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. ¹⁷ And I will ^[a]set My face against you so that you will be ^[b]defeated before your enemies; and ^(G)those who hate you will have dominion over you, and ^(H)you will flee when no one is pursuing you. ¹⁸ If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will discipline you ^(I)seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ I will also ^(J)break down your pride of strength; I will also give your sky over to become like iron and your earth like bronze. ^20 (K)And your power will be spent uselessly, for your land will not give forth its produce and the trees of the land will not give forth their fruit.

²¹ ‘If then, you ^(L)walk in hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you ^(M)seven times according to your sins. ^22 (N)And I will send out among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and cut down your cattle and reduce your number so that ^(O)your roads lie desolate.

²³ ‘^(P)And if by these things you do not accept My discipline, but walk in hostility against Me, ²⁴ then I will ^(Q)walk in hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you ^(R)seven times for your sins. ²⁵ I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute ^(S)vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send ^(T)pestilence among you so that you shall be given over into enemy hands. ^26 (U)When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by rationed weight so that you will ^(V)eat and not become full.

²⁷ ‘Yet, if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but walk in hostility against Me, ²⁸ then ^(W)I will walk in wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will discipline you seven times for your sins. ²⁹ Further, ^(X)you will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. ³⁰ I then ^(Y)will destroy your high places and cut down your ^(Z)incense altars and give your corpses to lie on the corpses of your idols, for My soul shall loathe you. ³¹ And I will give your cities over as a ^(AA)waste and will make your ^(AB)sanctuaries desolate, and I will not ^(AC)smell your soothing aromas. ³² And I will make ^(AD)the land desolate, ^(AE)so that your enemies who inhabit it will themselves feel desolate because of it. ³³ You, however, I ^(AF)will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.

³⁴ ‘^(AG)Then the land will make up for its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, and you will be in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and make up for its sabbaths. ³⁵ All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it. ³⁶ As for those of you who may remain, I will also bring ^(AH)weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee ^[c]as though from the sword, and they will fall. ^37 (AI)They will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength ^[d]to stand up before your enemies. ³⁸ But ^(AJ)you will perish among the nations, and your enemies’ land will consume you. ^39 (AK)So those of you who may remain will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they will rot away with them.

¹⁵ “So Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and ^(A)He will uproot Israel from ^(B)this good land which He gave to their fathers, and ^(C)will scatter them beyond the ^[a]River, ^(D)because they have made their ^[b]Asherim, provoking Yahweh to anger.

A Widow Sustains Elijah

17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of ^[a](A)the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “^(B)As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, surely ^(C)there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”

¹⁷ So he said,

² And he said,

Aleph