God’s Promises for Those Who Keep His Laws
26 ⌞The Lord continued,⌟ “Never make worthless idols or set up a carved statue or a sacred stone for yourselves. Never cut figures in stone to worship them in your country, because I am the Lord your God. 2 Observe my days of rest as holy days and respect my holy tent. I am the Lord.
3 “This is what I will do if you will live by my laws and carefully obey my commands:
4 “I will give you rain at the right time. The land will produce its crops, and the trees in the field will produce their fruit. 5 Threshing time will last until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until planting. You will eat all you want and live securely in your land.
6 “I will bring peace to your land. You will lie down with no one to scare you. I will remove dangerous animals, and there will be no war in your land. 7 You will chase your enemies, and you will defeat them. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred of them, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand of them. You will defeat your enemies, 9 and I will be pleased with you. Your families will be large, and I will keep my promise to you. 10 You will clear out old food supplies to make room for new ones.
11 “I will put my tent among you, and I will never look at you with disgust. 12 So I will live among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt so that you are no longer slaves of the Egyptians. I have broken their power over you and made you live as a free people.
God’s Curses for Those Who Break His Laws
14 “If you will not listen to me and obey all these commands, 15 if you reject my laws and look at my rules with disgust, if you reject my promise by disobeying my commands, 16 then this is what I will do to you: I will terrorize you with disease and fever. You will suffer from eye problems and depression. You will plant your crops and get nothing because your enemies will eat them. 17 I will condemn you so that you will go down in defeat in front of your enemies. Those who hate you will be your rulers. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.
18 “If you still will not listen to me, I will discipline you seven times for your sins. 19 I will crush your arrogance. You will have no rain, and your land will be as hard as cement. 20 You will work hard for nothing because your land will produce no crops and the trees will produce no fruit.
21 “If you resist and don’t listen to me, I will increase the punishment for your sins seven times. 22 I will send wild animals among you. They will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, and make you so few that your roads will be deserted.
23 “If this discipline does not help and you still resist, 24 then I, too, will resist you. I will punish you seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise ⌞that you rejected⌟. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy. 26 I will destroy your food supply. Ten women will need only one oven to prepare your food. You will eat and go away hungry.
27 “If in spite of this you do not listen to me and still resist me, 28 I will fiercely resist you. I will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. 30 I will destroy your worship sites, cut down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on top of your dead idols. I will look at you with disgust. 31 I will make your cities deserted and ruin your sacred places. I will no longer accept the soothing aroma from your sacrifices. 32 I will make your land so deserted that your enemies will be shocked as they settle in it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations. War will follow you. Your country will be in ruins. Your cities will be deserted.
34 “Then the land will enjoy its time ⌞to honor the Lord⌟ while it lies deserted and you are in your enemies’ land. Then the land will joyfully celebrate its time ⌞to honor the Lord⌟. 35 All the days it lies deserted, it will celebrate the time ⌞to honor the Lord⌟ it never celebrated while you lived there. 36 I will fill with despair those who are left in the land of their enemies. The sound of a windblown leaf will make them run. They will run away and fall, but no one will be chasing them. 37 They will stumble over each other, but no one will be after them. They will not be able to stand up to their enemies. 38 They will be destroyed among the nations. The land of their enemies will devour them. 39 Those who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
God Will Remember His Promise
40 “But if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—the treacherous things they did to oppose me— 41 I will oppose them and bring them into the lands of their enemies. Then, if they humble their uncircumcised hearts and accept their guilt, 42 I will remember my promise to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. I will also remember the land. 43 The land, abandoned by them, will enjoy its time to honor the Lord while it lies deserted without them. They must accept their guilt because they rejected my rules and looked at my laws with disgust. 44 Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or look at them with disgust. I will not reject or cancel my promise to them, because I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake, I will remember the promise to their ancestors. I brought them out of Egypt to be their God while nations looked on. I am the Lord.”
46 These are the laws, rules, and instructions that the Lord gave to the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.
Footnotes
- 26:5
- 26:9
