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
Leviticus 26
King James Version
26 Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God.
2 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.
3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;
4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9 For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.
10 And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.
11 And I set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.
12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
13 I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.
14 But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
17 And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.
22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.
23 And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;
24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26 And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;
28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.
36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.
37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
38 And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
40 If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;
41 And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
42 Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.
43 The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.
44 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God.
45 But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.
46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible