Leviticus 26

1 Ye shall make for you no idols. Neither shall ye rear up for you a graven image, or a pillar. Neither shall ye place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it. For I am Jehovah your God.

“Don't make yourselves idols anywhere in your land and bow down to worship them, whether they are images or sacred pillars or stone sculptures. For I am the Lord your God.

2 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am Jehovah.

Keep my Sabbaths and show respect for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them,

If you follow my rules and keep my regulations,

4 then I will give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

I will make sure it rains at the right time so that the ground will grow good crops and the fruit trees will be productive.

5 And your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

Your time of threshing will last right up to the grape harvest, and the grape harvest until the time you have to sow again. You will have more than enough to eat and you will live in safety in your land.

6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land, nor shall the sword go through your land.

I will make sure your land is at peace. You will be able to sleep without being afraid of anything. I will get rid of dangerous animals from the land, and you will not suffer from any violent enemy attacks.

7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

You will chase your enemies, and kill them with the sword.

8 And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

Five of you will kill one hundred, and one hundred of you will kill ten thousand. You will destroy your enemies.

9 And I will have respect to you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.

I will come to help you, so you will reproduce and increase in numbers, and I will confirm my agreement with you.

10 And ye shall eat old storage long kept, and ye shall bring forth the old because of the new.

You'll still be eating your old stock of grain when you need to get rid of it so you can store the new grain.

11 And I will set my tabernacle among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.

I will come and live with you—I certainly won't reject you.

12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

I shall always be right there with you. I will be your God, and you will be my people.

13 I am Jehovah your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen. And I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright.

I am the Lord your God, who led you out of Egypt so you wouldn't have to be slaves to the Egyptians any longer. I smashed the yoke that kept you bent down and helped you to stand up straight.

14 But if ye will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments,

But if you don't pay attention to me and do what I tell you;

15 and if ye shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,

if you reject my laws, hate my regulations, and refuse to follow my commandments, and consequently break my agreement,

16 I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. And ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

then this is what I am going to do to you: I will make you panic, and suffer from diseases like tuberculosis and fever that make you blind and drain your life away. It will be pointless for you to sow seed in your fields because your enemies will eat the harvest.

17 And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be smitten before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and ye shall flee when no man pursues you.

I will turn against you, and you'll be defeated by your enemies. People who hate you will rule over you, and you'll run away even when there's no one chasing you!

18 And if for these things ye will not yet hearken to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.

If after all this you still refuse to obey me, I will move to punishing you seven times over for your sins.

19 And I will break the pride of your power. And I will make your sky as iron, and your earth as brass,

I will break your self-reliant strength you're so proud of, and make your sky hard as iron and your land hard as bronze.

20 and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.

Your strength will be completely wasted because your land won't produce crops, and your trees won't produce fruit.

21 And if ye walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

If you go on opposing me and refusing to do what I tell you, I will make your punishments seven times worse, based on your sins.

22 And I will send the beast of the field among you, which shall rob you of your sons, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, and your ways shall become desolate.

I will send wild animals to kill your children, wipe out your livestock, and make you so few in number that there won't be anyone on your roads.

23 And if by these things ye will not be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me,

However, if in spite of all this correction you still don't change but go on opposing me,

24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will smite you, even I, seven times for your sins.

then I will take action against you. I will punish you seven times over for your sins.

25 And I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant, and ye shall be gathered together within your cities. And I will send the pestilence among you, and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

I will send enemies with swords to attack you in retaliation for breaking the agreement. Even though you retreat into your towns for defense, I will plague you with disease, and you will be handed over to your enemies.

26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight, and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

I will send a famine so bread is in short supply. One oven will serve the needs of ten women baking bread. It will be distributed by weight so that you'll eat but won't have enough.

27 And if for all this ye will not hearken to me, but walk contrary to me,

However, if in spite of all this you don't obey me, but go on opposing me,

28 then I will walk contrary to you in wrath, and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins.

then I will take action against you in a rage of fury, and I will punish you myself seven times over for your sins.

29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters ye shall eat.

You will eat the bodies of your own sons and daughters.

30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your sun-images, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

I will destroy your high places of worship, smash your altars of incense, and pile up your dead bodies on what remains of your idols, which also have no life at all. I will really despise you.

31 And I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.

I will demolish your towns and destroy your pagan sanctuaries, and I will refuse to accept your sacrifices.

32 And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.

I will devastate your land myself, so that your enemies who come and live in it will be horrified at what has happened.

33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

I'm going to scatter you among the nations. You will be chased out by armies with swords as your land is ruined and your towns are destroyed.

34 Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, and ye are in your enemies' land, even then shall the land rest, and enjoy its sabbaths.

At least then the land will be able to enjoy its Sabbaths all the time it's abandoned while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. The land will finally be able to rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.

35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it had not in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

The whole time it's abandoned the land will observe the Sabbaths of rest that it wasn't able to do while you were living there.

36 And as for those who are left of you, I will send a faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as a man flees from the sword, and they shall fall when no man pursues.

I will make those of you who survive so discouraged that as you live in the lands of your enemies even the sound of a leaf blowing in the wind will scare you into running away! You'll run away like you're being chased by someone with a sword, and fall down even though no one is after you.

37 And they shall stumble one upon another, as it were before the sword, when no man pursues. And ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

You'll trip over each other as you run away from the attack, then though no one's there. You'll have no power to resist your enemies.

38 And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

You'll die in exile and you'll be buried in a foreign country.

39 And those who are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands, and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

Those of you who do manage to survive in the countries of your enemies will wither away because of their guilt, decaying as they share the sins of their fathers.

40 And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,

They need to confess their sins and those of their fathers, acting in such an unfaithful way towards me, opposing me.

41 I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity,

Because of this I took action against them and exiled them in the countries of their enemies. However, if they humbly give up their stubborn attitude and accept their punishment for their sins,

42 then I will 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.

then I will fulfill the agreement I made with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, and I will not forget my promise about the land.

43 The land also shall be left by them, and shall enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. And they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity, because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

For the land will be left empty by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths being abandoned. They will pay for their sins, because they rejected my rules and regulations.

44 And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, for I am Jehovah their God,

But despite all this, even while they are living in land of their enemies, I will not reject or hate them so much as to destroy them and break my agreement with them, because I am the Lord their God.

45 but for their sakes I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Jehovah.

Because of them I will renew the agreement I made with their fathers, those I led out of Egypt as the other nations watched, in order that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”

46 These are the statutes and ordinances and laws, which Jehovah made between him and the sons of Israel at mount Sinai by Moses.

These are the rules, regulations, and laws that the Lord set up between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.