Leviticus 26
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Covenant Blessings and Discipline
26 “Do not make idols for yourselves,(A) set up a carved image or sacred pillar for yourselves, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am Yahweh your God. 2 You must keep My Sabbaths and revere My sanctuary;(B) I am Yahweh.
3 “If you follow My statutes and faithfully observe My commands, 4 I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land.(C) 6 I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land.(D) 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you will pursue 100, and 100 of you will pursue 10,000; your enemies will fall before you by the sword.(E)
9 “I will turn to you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and confirm My covenant with you. 10 You will eat the old grain of the previous year and will clear out the old to make room for the new. 11 I will place My residence[a] among you, and I will not reject you.(F) 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.(G) 13 I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke(H) and enabled you to live in freedom.[b]
14 “But if you do not obey Me and observe all these commands— 15 if you reject My statutes and despise My ordinances, and do not observe all My commands—and break My covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring terror(I) on you—wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will turn[c] against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even though no one is pursuing you.(J)
18 “But if after these things you will not obey Me, I will proceed to discipline you seven times for your sins.(K) 19 I will break down your strong pride. I will make your sky like iron and your land like bronze, 20 and your strength will be used up for nothing.(L) Your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.
21 “If you act with hostility toward Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will multiply your plagues seven times for your sins.(M) 22 I will send wild animals against you that will deprive you of your children, ravage your livestock, and reduce your numbers until your roads are deserted.(N)
23 “If in spite of these things you do not accept My discipline, but act with hostility toward Me, 24 then I will act with hostility toward you; I also will strike you seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring a sword against you(O) to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, 10 women will bake your bread in a single oven and ration out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.(P)
27 “And if in spite of this you do not obey Me but act with hostility toward Me, 28 I will act with furious hostility toward you; I will also discipline you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons; you will eat the flesh of your daughters.(Q) 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your dead bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols;(R) I will reject you. 31 I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.(S) 32 I also will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it. 33 But I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword to chase after you. So your land will become desolate, and your cities will become ruins.
34 “Then the land will make up for its Sabbath years during the time it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and make up for its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate, it will have the rest it did not have during your Sabbaths when you lived there.
36 “I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a wind-driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from a sword, and fall though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as if fleeing from a sword though no one is pursuing them. You will not be able to stand against your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those[d] who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away because of their sin; they will also waste away because of their fathers’ sins along with theirs.
40 “But if they will confess their sin and the sin of their fathers—their unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, and how they acted with hostility toward Me, 41 and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled,(T) and if they will pay the penalty for their sin, 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob. I will also remember My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbaths by lying desolate without the people, while they pay the penalty for their sin, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes. 44 Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them, since I am Yahweh their God.(U) 45 For their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God; I am Yahweh.”
46 These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws the Lord established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 26:11 Or tabernacle
- Leviticus 26:13 Lit to walk uprightly
- Leviticus 26:17 Lit will set My face
- Leviticus 26:39 Lit Those of you
Leviticus 26
Common English Bible
Covenant blessings
26 You must not make any idols, and do not set up any divine image or sacred pillar. You must not place any carved[a] stone in your land, bowing down to it, because I am the Lord your God. 2 You must keep my sabbaths and respect my sanctuary; I am the Lord.
3 If you live according to my rules, keep my commands, and do them, 4 I will give you rain at the proper time, the land will produce its yield, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 5 Your threshing season will last until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will last until planting time. You will eat your fill of food and live securely in your land. 6 I will grant peace in the land so that you can lie down without anyone frightening you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through it. 7 You will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you in battle. 8 Five of you will chase away a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase away ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you in battle. 9 I will turn my face to you, will make you fruitful and numerous, and will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating the previous year’s harvest when the time will come to clear it out to make room for the new! 11 I will place my dwelling[b] among you, and I will not despise you. 12 I will walk around among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt’s land—who brought you out from being Egypt’s slaves. I broke your bonds and made you stand up straight.
Covenant curses
14 But if you do not obey me and do not carry out all these commands— 15 if you reject my rules and despise my regulations, not doing all my commands and breaking my covenant— 16 then I will do the following to you:
I will bring horrific things:[c] wasting diseases and fevers that make the eyes fail and drain life away.
You will plant seed for no reason because your enemies will eat the food.
17 I will turn my face against you: you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you; and you will run away even when no one is chasing you.
18 If, despite all that, you still do not obey me, I will punish you for your sins seven more times: 19 I will destroy your prideful power. I will turn your sky to iron and your land to bronze 20 so that your strength will be spent for no reason: your land will not produce its yield, and the trees of the land won’t produce their fruit.
21 If you continue to oppose me and are unwilling to obey me, I will strike you for your sins seven more times: 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will kill your children and destroy your livestock. They will make you so few in number that your roads will seem deserted.
23 If, despite these things, you still do not accept my discipline and continue to oppose me, 24 then I will continue to oppose you. I will strike you for your sins seven more times: 25 I will bring the sword against you, avenging the breaking of the covenant.[d] If you retreat into your cities, I will send a plague on you, and you will be handed over to the enemy. 26 When I destroy your food supply, ten women will bake bread in a single oven, and they will ration out bread by weight. You will eat but will never get full.
27 If, despite all this, you still do not obey me and continue to oppose me, 28 then I will continue to oppose you—with anger! I will punish you for your sins seven more times: 29 You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30 I will eliminate your shrines, chop down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on the dead bodies of your idols. I will despise you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins, I will devastate your sanctuaries, and I will not smell the soothing smells of your offerings. 32 I will personally devastate the land so much that your enemies who resettle it will be astonished by it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations. I will unsheathe my sword against you. Your land will be devastated and your cities will be ruins.
34 At that time, while it is devastated and you are in enemy territory, the land will enjoy its sabbaths. At that time, the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 During the whole time it is devastated, it will have the rest it didn’t have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36 I will bring despair into the hearts of those of you who survive in enemy territory. Just the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to running, and they will run scared as if running from a sword! They will fall even when no one is chasing them! 37 They will stumble over each other as they would before a sword, even though no one is chasing them! You will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 You will disappear among the nations—the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Any of you who do survive will rot in enemy territory on account of their guilty deeds. And they will rot too on account of their ancestors’ guilty deeds.
Covenant and restoration
40 But if they confess their and their ancestors’ guilt for the wrongdoing they did to me, and for their continued opposition to me— 41 which made me oppose them, so I took them into enemy territory—or if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make up for their guilt, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will also remember my covenant with Isaac. And my covenant with Abraham. And I will remember the land. 43 The land will be absent of them and will be enjoying its sabbaths while it lies devastated, free of them. They will be making up for their guilty deeds for no other reason than the fact that they rejected my regulations and despised my rules. 44 But despite all that, when they are in enemy territory, I will not reject them or despise them to the point of totally destroying them, breaking my covenant with them by doing so, because I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with the first generation, the ones I brought out of Egypt’s land in the sight of all the nations, in order to be their God; I am the Lord.
46 These are the rules, regulations, and instructions between the Lord and the Israelites that he gave through Moses on Mount Sinai.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 26:1 Heb uncertain
- Leviticus 26:11 Or tabernacle
- Leviticus 26:16 Precise nature of the diseases uncertain
- Leviticus 26:25 Or executing covenant vengeance
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