Leviticus 26
Lexham English Bible
Blessings for Obedience
26 “‘You[a] 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[b] 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, 4 then[c] 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. 5 And 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[d] and you shall live securely[e] in your land. 6 And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and there shall not be anybody who makes you afraid,[f] and I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword shall pass through your land.[g] 7 And you shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.[h] 8 And five of[i] you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of[j] you shall pursue a myriad;[k] and your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.[l] 9 And 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. 10 And you shall eat old grain,[m] and you shall clear away the old before the new.[n] 11 And I will put my dwelling place in your midst, and my inner self[o] shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk about in your midst, and I shall be your God,[p] and you shall be my people.[q] 13 I 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[r] if you do not listen to me and you do not carry out[s] all these commands, 15 and if you reject my statutes and if your inner self[t] abhors my regulations, to not carry out[u] all my commands by your breaking my covenant, 16 I in turn[v] will do this to you: then[w] 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,[x] and your enemies shall eat it. 17 And I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated before[y] your enemies; and your haters shall rule over you, and you shall flee away, but[z] there shall not be anybody who is pursuing[aa] you.
18 “‘And if in spite of these things you do not listen to me, then[ab] I will continue to discipline you seven times for your sins. 19 And I will break the pride of your strength; and I will make your heaven like iron[ac] and your land like copper. 20 And your strength shall be consumed in vain;[ad] 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[ae] I will add a plague onto you seven times according to your sins. 22 And I will send wild animals[af] 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[ag] me through these things, but[ah] you go against me in hostility, 24 then[ai] I myself[aj] will also go against you in hostility, and I myself[ak] also will strike you seven times for your sins. 25 And 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. 26 At my breaking the supply[al] of bread[am] for you, then[an] 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, 28 then[ao] I will go against you in hostile anger, and also[ap] I myself[aq] will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29 And you shall eat the flesh of your sons; and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat. 30 And 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[ar] shall abhor you. 31 And I will lay your cities in ruins, and I will lay waste your sanctuaries; and I shall not smell your sacrifices’[as] appeasing fragrance. 32 And I myself[at] will lay waste the land, and your enemies who are living in it shall be appalled over it. 33 And 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. 34 Then 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. 35 All the days of its lying desolate it shall rest for the time[au] that it had not rested during your Sabbaths while you were living on it. 36 As for[av] the ones who remain among you, I will bring[aw] 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[ax] a sword, and they shall fall, but[ay] there shall not be a pursuer. 37 And they shall stumble over one another[az] as from before[ba] a sword, but[bb] there shall not be a pursuer; and you shall have no resistance[bc] before[bd] your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you. 39 And 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,[be] they shall decay with them.
40 “‘But[bf] when they confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors[bg] in their infidelity that they displayed against me, and moreover that they went against me in hostility— 41 I myself[bh] also[bi] 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, 42 I will remember[bj] 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. 43 And the land shall be deserted by them, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths in its being desolate from them, and they themselves[bk] must pay for their guilt, simply because[bl] they rejected my regulations, and their inner self[bm] abhorred my statutes. 44 And in spite of[bn] this, when they are[bo] 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. 45 And I will remember the first covenant for them[bp]—whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of[bq] the nations to be their God.[br] I am Yahweh.’”
46 These are the rules and the regulations and the laws that Yahweh gave between himself and the Israelites[bs] on Mount Sinai[bt] through[bu] Moses.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 26:1 Plural throughout the entire chapter
- Leviticus 26:1 Or “to”
- Leviticus 26:4 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:5 Literally “to contentment”
- Leviticus 26:5 Literally “with confidence”
- Leviticus 26:6 Literally “who makes afraid” or “making afraid”
- Leviticus 26:6 Literally “a sword shall not pass through in your land”
- Leviticus 26:7 Literally “to your faces”
- Leviticus 26:8 Hebrew “from”
- Leviticus 26:8 Hebrew “from”
- Leviticus 26:8 Or “ten thousand”
- Leviticus 26:8 Literally “to your faces”
- Leviticus 26:10 Literally “old what is stale”
- Leviticus 26:10 Literally “old from the faces of new you shall bring out”
- Leviticus 26:11 Or “soul”
- Leviticus 26:12 Or “as a God for you”
- Leviticus 26:12 Or “as a people for me”
- Leviticus 26:14 Or “And”
- Leviticus 26:14 Or “you do not do” or “you do not observe” or “you do not perform”
- Leviticus 26:15 Or “soul”
- Leviticus 26:15 Or “do” or “observe” or “perform”
- Leviticus 26:16 Literally “also” or “indeed”
- Leviticus 26:16 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:16 Literally “for the emptiness”
- Leviticus 26:17 Literally “to the faces of”
- Leviticus 26:17 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:17 Literally “who pursues” or “pursuing”
- Leviticus 26:18 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:19 Or “iron ore”
- Leviticus 26:20 Literally “to the emptiness”
- Leviticus 26:21 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:22 Literally “the animals of the field”
- Leviticus 26:23 Hebrew “for” or “to”
- Leviticus 26:23 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:24 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:24 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Leviticus 26:24 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Leviticus 26:26 Literally “staff”
- Leviticus 26:26 Or “food”
- Leviticus 26:26 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:28 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:28 Or “surely”
- Leviticus 26:28 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Leviticus 26:30 Or “soul”
- Leviticus 26:31 Implied by the use of the same phraseology in regard to the sacrifices in the early chapters of the book
- Leviticus 26:32 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Leviticus 26:35 Implied by context
- Leviticus 26:36 Or “And”
- Leviticus 26:36 Or “and I will bring”
- Leviticus 26:36 Literally “of”
- Leviticus 26:36 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:37 Literally “a man on his brother”
- Leviticus 26:37 Literally “from the faces of”
- Leviticus 26:37 Or “and”
- Leviticus 26:37 Literally “it shall not be for you resistance”
- Leviticus 26:37 Literally “to the faces of”
- Leviticus 26:39 Or “fathers”
- Leviticus 26:40 Or “And”
- Leviticus 26:40 Or “fathers”
- Leviticus 26:41 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Leviticus 26:41 Or “surely”
- Leviticus 26:42 Or “and I will remember”
- Leviticus 26:43 Emphatic personal pronoun
- Leviticus 26:43 Literally “because and in because”
- Leviticus 26:43 Or “soul”
- Leviticus 26:44 Literally “also even” or “moreover also” or “moreover even”
- Leviticus 26:44 Literally “in their being”
- Leviticus 26:45 Or “on behalf of them” or “on their behalf”
- Leviticus 26:45 Literally “to the eyes of” or “for the eyes of”
- Leviticus 26:45 Literally “to be for them for God” or “to be for them as a God”
- Leviticus 26:46 Literally “sons/children of Israel”
- Leviticus 26:46 Literally “the mountain of Sinai”
- Leviticus 26:46 Literally “in/by the hand of”
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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