Leviticus 26

1 Do not make images of false gods, or put up an image cut in stone or a pillar or any pictured stone in your land, to give worship to it; for I am the Lord 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 Keep my Sabbaths and give honour to my holy place: I am the Lord.

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

3 If you are guided by my rules, and keep my laws and do them,

If you follow my rules and keep my regulations,

4 Then I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will give her increase and the trees of the field will give 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 the crushing of the grain will overtake the cutting of the grapes, and the cutting of the grapes will overtake the planting of the seed, and there will be bread in full measure, and you will be living 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 you peace in the land, and you will take your rest and no one will give you cause for fear; and I will put an end to all evil beasts in the land, and no sword of war will 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 you will put to flight those who are against you, and they will be put to death by your swords.

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

8 Then five of you will put to flight a hundred, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, and all who are against you will be put to death by your swords.

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 pleasure in you and make you fertile and greater in number; and I will keep my agreement 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 old stores long kept will be your food, and you will take out 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 put my holy House among you, and my soul will not be turned away from you in disgust.

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

12 And I will be present among you and will be your God and you will 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 the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt so that you might not be servants to them; by me the cords of your yoke were broken and I 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 you do not give ear to me, and do not keep all these my laws;

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

15 And if you go against my rules and if you have hate in your souls for my decisions and you do not do all my orders, but go against my agreement;

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

16 This will I do to you: I will put fear in your hearts, even wasting disease and burning pain, drying up the eyes and making the soul feeble, and you will get no profit from your seed, for your haters will take it for food.

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 my face will be turned from you, and you will be broken before those who are against you, and your haters will become your rulers, and you will go in flight when no man comes after 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, even after these things, you will not give ear to me, then I will send you punishment 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 the pride of your strength will be broken, and I will make your heaven 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 will be used up without profit; for your land will not give her increase and the trees of the field will not give 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 you still go against me and will not give ear to me, I will put seven times more punishments on you because of 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 I will let loose the beasts of the field among you, and they will take away your children and send destruction on your cattle, so that your numbers will become small and your roads become waste.

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 you will not be turned to me, but still go against me;

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

24 Then I will go against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for all your sins.

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

25 And I will send a sword on you to give effect to the punishment of my agreement; and when you come together into your towns I will send disease among you and you will be given up into the hands of your haters.

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 take away your bread of life, ten women will be cooking bread in one oven, and your bread will be measured out by weight; you will have food but never enough.

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, after all this, you do not give ear to me, but go against me still,

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

28 Then my wrath will be burning against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, 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 Then you will take the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters for food;

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

30 And I will send destruction on your high places, overturning your perfume altars, and will put your dead bodies on your broken images, and my soul will be turned from you in disgust.

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 towns waste and send destruction on your holy places; I will take no pleasure in the smell of your sweet perfumes;

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

32 And I will make your land a waste, a wonder to your haters living in 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 send you out in all directions among the nations, and my sword will be uncovered against you, and your land will be without any living thing, and your towns will be made 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 will the land take pleasure in its Sabbaths while it is waste and you are living in the land of your haters; then will the land have rest.

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 All the days while it is waste will the land have rest, such rest as it never had in your Sabbaths, when you were living in 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 the rest of you, I will make their hearts feeble in the land of their haters, and the sound of a leaf moved by the wind will send them in flight, and they will go in flight as from the sword, falling down when no one comes after them;

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 Falling on one another, as before the sword, when no one comes after them; you will give way before your haters.

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 death will overtake you among strange nations, and the land of your haters will be your destruction.

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

39 And those of you who are still living will be wasting away in their sins in the land of your haters; in the sins of their fathers they will be wasting away.

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 will have grief for their sins and for the sins of their fathers, when their hearts were untrue to me, and they went against me;

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

41 So that I went against them and sent them away into the land of their haters: if then the pride of their hearts is broken and they take the punishment of their sins,

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 keep in mind the agreement which I made with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will keep in mind 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 And the land, while she is without them, will keep her Sabbaths; and they will undergo the punishment of their sins, because they were turned away from my decisions and in their souls was hate for my laws.

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 But for all that, when they are in the land of their haters I will not let them go, or be turned away from them, or give them up completely; my agreement with them will not be broken, for I am the Lord 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 And because of them I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with their fathers, whom I took out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.

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 rules, decisions, and laws, which the Lord made between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

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