Chapter 26
Rewards of Obedience. 1 “Do not make idols or carved images. Do not set up stone images in your land before which you bow down. I am the Lord, your God. 2 Observe my Sabbaths and stand in awe before my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 3 Follow my statutes and keep my commandments and obey them. 4 Then I will give you rain in its proper season and the yield of the land shall increase and the trees of the field shall bear their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall continue even until your grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall continue until the time for planting. You shall eat your fill of your bread, and dwell securely in your land. 6 I will grant peace in the land. You shall lie down, fearing nothing. I will rid the land of savage beasts, and the sword will not pass through your land. 7 You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you ten thousand, and you shall put them to flight. Your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. 9 I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful, and cause you to multiply, and establish my covenant with you. 10 You shall still be eating the old harvest and shall have to clean out the old because of the new. 11 I will establish my tabernacle among you, and my soul will not reject you. 12 I will walk in your midst and I will be your God and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord, your God, who brought you forth from the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be their slaves. I have broken the bonds of your yoke and brought you out with your heads held high.
14 Consequences of Disobedience.“But if you do not listen to me and do not keep these commandments 15 and if you despise my statutes and hate my ordinances, failing to observe my commandments and breaking my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit terror upon you, and consumption and fever that will destroy your eyesight and break your hearts. You shall plant your seeds in vain, and your enemies shall eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you are slain by your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee even though no one is pursuing you.
18 “Then, if you still do not obey me, I will punish you seven times as much for your sins. 19 I shall break down your stubborn pride. I shall make your skies like iron and your earth like brass. 20 Your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
21 “If you continue to be hostile to me and will not obey me, I will bring plagues upon you, seven times greater than your sins. 22 I will also send wild animals into your midst. They shall carry off your children and cut down your cattle. They shall cause your numbers to decrease and your highways shall become desolate. 23 If you do not accept my correction through these things and you walk in opposition to me, 24 then I will also walk in opposition to you and I will punish you seven times more than your sins. 25 I will bring a sword upon you that will execute vengeance for my covenant. When you are gathered together in your cities, I will send a plague upon you and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I have cut off your supply of bread, then ten women shall bake bread in the same oven. They shall deliver your measure of bread. You shall eat it, but not be satisfied.
27 “But if after all of this you still will not obey me but walk in opposition to me, 28 then I will walk in opposition to you in my fury. I will punish you seven times more than your sins. 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your idols. I will cast your bodies upon the remains of your idols, and I will loathe you. 31 I will lay your cities waste and bring desolation upon your sanctuaries. I will not delight in your fragrant aromas. 32 I will lay waste the land, and your enemies will dwell there. 33 I will scatter you among the pagans and pull out my sword against you. Your land shall be desolate and your cities shall be laid waste. 34 The land shall be pleased with its Sabbaths while it is desolate and you are dwelling in the land of your enemies. The land shall then rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 It shall rest as long as it lies desolate, because it did not rest during your Sabbaths when you dwelt in it.
36 “As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so timid in the land of their enemies that the sound of a blowing leaf will put them to flight. They shall flee as though fleeing from a sword. They shall fall down when no one is chasing them. 37 They shall fall all over one another as if before a sword, even though no one is chasing them. You shall not have the strength to stand before your enemies. 38 You shall die among the pagans, the land of your enemies will devour you.
39 “Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in the land of their enemies, and also because of the iniquity of their fathers. They shall pine away with them. 40 If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, the trespasses that they committed against me, and that they acted in opposition to me, 41 so that I walked in opposition to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they accept the punishment for their sins, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham. These I will remember, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will have been abandoned by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate when they are no longer there. They shall accept the punishment for their iniquity, for they despised my ordinances and their souls loathed my statutes. 44 Yet in spite of all of that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I loathe them, utterly destroying them, and thus breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord, their God. 45 For their sake I will remember the covenant I made with their ancestors whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the pagans so that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”
46 These are the statutes and the ordinances and the laws that the Lord established through Moses between himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 26:1
- Leviticus 26:3
- Leviticus 26:12
- Leviticus 26:40
