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
The Voice
26 Eternal One: Do not fashion any idols or blasphemous images. Do not erect any sacred pillars as the nations around you do. Do not set up any carved stones in your land and bow down to them. I am the Eternal your God. 2 Honor My Sabbaths, and treat My sanctuary as a holy place. I am the Eternal One.
3 If you walk in My decrees and keep My commandments in your daily lives, 4 I will grant you plenty of rain in the seasons when you need it, and your land will produce abundant crops and your trees will be filled with fruit. 5 Your grain threshing will last until the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until it is time to plant again. You will fill your bellies with food and feel secure as you live in the land. 6 I will see to it that you have peace in your land. You will be able to go to bed at night without a worry on your mind. I will take away the dangerous animals that roam your land, and no armies will invade your land. 7-8 When you go after your enemies, they will fall by your sword. Five of you will go after 100 of your enemies, and 100 of you will cause 10,000 to flee. 9 I will grant you My favor, and you will be fruitful, multiply, and have many healthy children, and I will continue to honor My covenant with you. 10 You will have so much surplus food from year to year that you will have to make room for the new harvest when it comes in. 11 I will make my home among you and never turn away from you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.[a] 13 I am the Eternal One, your God, who led you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be their slaves. I have shattered the yokes that broke your backs and helped you walk straight and upright.
14 However, if you do not obey Me or live by all I have commanded, 15 if you turn your backs on My decrees and despise what I have commanded so that you fail to do as I have directed and break the covenant that exists between us, 16 then this is what you can expect: I will bring a horrific cloud of terror over you, and you will waste away in disease and burning fevers, your eyes will grow dark, and your restless souls will long for life. The seeds you plant will provide you no sustenance because raiders will consume whatever you grow. 17 I will turn My face against you and stand by as your enemies strike you down. Those who despise you will reign over you, and you will run away even when no one is chasing you. 18 If, after all this, you still do not listen to Me, then I will increase your punishment until you have paid seven times for your sins. 19 I will break you of your powerful pride, and I will make the heavens above you as cold as iron and your earth below you as hard as bronze. 20 Your strength will be wasted because the land you work will not yield its crops, and the trees you plant will not bear fruit.
21 And if, after all this, you still rebel against Me and fail to listen to Me, I will strike you until you have paid seven times for your sins. 22 I will unleash ravenous wild beasts against you, and they will deprive you of your children and destroy your livestock; before long your numbers will dwindle and your busy roads will be deserted.
23 And if, after all these punishments, you still have not turned back to Me but continue to rebel against Me, 24 I will move against you, and this time I will punish you Myself until you have paid seven times for your sins. 25 I will march armies against you that will execute My vengeance against you for the covenant you have broken. When you retreat into your cities, I will send a vicious plague among you until you fall to your adversaries. 26 I will cut off your food supply until there is so little bread that 10 women will need only one oven to bake it. When they serve it, your portion will be carefully weighed and rationed and you won’t have enough to satisfy you.
27 If, after all this, you still do not listen to Me but continue to rebel against Me, 28 I will move against you with the full heat of My fury. I will punish you Myself until you have paid seven times for your sins. 29 You will become so hungry that some of you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30 I will demolish your high places where false worship taints the land and tear down your incense altars. I will pile your lifeless bodies on the rubble of your lifeless god-images. I will detest you. 31 I will turn your bustling cities into wastelands. I will empty and silence your pagan sanctuaries. When you do sacrifice to Me, I will pay no attention to the pleasant aromas. 32 Yes, I will move against the land until it lies in ruins, and those who conquer you and settle there will be horrified by what they see. 33 I will scatter you among the nations. I will draw My sword against you. Your land will become an eerie wasteland, and your cities will lie in ruins.
34 While you are scattered among your enemies, your land will bask in its Sabbaths. For as long as the land is barren, it will enjoy the Sabbaths and the rest it deserves. 35 For all the days it lies desolate, it will have the rest it never had while you were living on the land. 36-37 For those of you who may survive, I will make your hearts despair as you live in lands occupied by your enemies. You will be so fearful that the noise made by a windblown leaf will startle you and send you running away in panic. Even when no one is chasing after you, you will run away and trip over each other as if you are being chased by an army. You will have no power to stand up to your enemies. 38 You will die far from home in foreign lands. The land of your adversaries will devour your corpses. 39 Those of you who survive will waste away in the lands of your adversaries because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors; they will surely waste away to nothing.
40 But if they own up to their sins and acknowledge the sins of their ancestors, if they admit that they have been unfaithful to Me, defied Me, and rebelled against Me— 41 which prompted Me to turn against them and scatter them among their enemies—if they humble their uncircumcised hearts and offer reparations for their sins, 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, and I will also remember the land. 43 As long as the land lies deserted without them, it will catch up on the Sabbaths it has missed and be renewed. In the meantime, they must offer reparations for their sins because they turned their backs on My decrees and despised My commands. 44 But even then, as long as My people are dwelling in the land of their adversaries, I will not reject them or hate them so much that I break My covenant with them and annihilate them. I am the Eternal One, their God. 45 Still they will benefit when I remember the covenant I made with their ancestors when I led them out of the land of Egypt with the whole world watching so that I could be their God. I am the Eternal One.
46 These are the directives, commandments, and instructions the Eternal One gave through Moses on Mount Sinai to establish the covenant between Himself and the Israelites.
Footnotes
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The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.