Leviticus 26

1 Ye shall not make yourselves any idols, and a graven image, or a standing image shall ye not rear up unto you, and any carved stone shall you not place in your land, to bow down upon it; for I am the Eternal 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 My sabbaths shall ye keep, and my sanctuary shall ye reverence: I am the Lord.

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

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

If you follow my rules and keep my regulations,

4 Then will I give you rains in their due season, and the earth shall yield her products, and the tree of the field shall yield its 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 threshing shall reach with you unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto sowing-time; and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and ye shall dwell in safety in your land.

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, with none to make you afraid; and I will remove evil beasts out of the land, and the sword shall not pass 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 turn myself unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you; and I 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 very old store, and the old shall ye remove away 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 dwelling among you; and my soul shall not loath you.

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

12 And I will walk among you, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a people.

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

13 I am the Eternal your God, who have brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bond-men; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and caused you to walk 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 unto 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 my statutes ye despise, and if my ordinances your soul loath, so as not to do all my commandments, in that ye break my covenant:

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

16 Then will I also do this unto you, and I will inflict on you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow in vain your seed, 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 struck down before your enemies: and they that hate you shall bear rule over you; and ye shall flee while there is no one pursuing 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 with these things even ye will not yet hearken unto me: then will I chastise you yet more, sevenfold 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 heaven as iron, and your earth as copper:

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 in vain shall your strength be spent; for your land shall not yield her products, and the tree of the land shall not yield its 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 yet contrary unto me, and if you refuse to hearken unto me: then will I bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold 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 out against you the beasts of the field, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and diminish yourselves; so that your roads shall be 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 notwithstanding these things ye will not be reformed by me, and walk contrary unto me:

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

24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and I also will punish you, sevenfold 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 over you the sword, avenging the quarrel of my covenant, so that ye shall be gathered together within your cities; and then will I send the pestilence among you, that ye shall deliver yourselves 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 unto you the staff of bread; and 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 notwithstanding this ye will not hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me:

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

28 Then will I also walk contrary unto you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you, sevenfold 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 shall ye 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 carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols; and my soul shall loath 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 render your cities a waste, and I will make desolate your sanctuaries, 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 surely make desolate the land: and your enemies who dwell therein 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 you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out after you the sword; and your land shall be a desolate wild, 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 shall the land satisfy its sabbaths, all the days of its desolation, when ye are in the land of your enemies: then shall the land rest, and satisfy 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 All the days of its desolation shall it rest, the time which it did not rest 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 regarding those that are left of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a leaf shaken shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from the sword; and they shall fall with none pursuing.

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 over the other, as before the sword, without one pursuing: and ye shall have no power to stand up 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 be lost among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall consume you.

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

39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in the land of your enemies; and also through the iniquities of their fathers shall they 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 then confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, [that] through their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that [because] they had walked contrary unto 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 had to walk contrary unto them, and to bring them into the land of their enemies; and then shall their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and then shall they satisfy 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 And I will then remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and the land will I remember.

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

43 For the land shall be forsaken by them, and shall satisfy its sabbaths, while it lieth desolate without them, and they shall satisfy their iniquity; because, even because my ordinances they despised, and my statutes their soul loathed.

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, though they be in the land of their enemies, will I not cast them away, neither will I loath them, to destroy them utterly, to break my covenant with them; 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 But I will remember for their sakes the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, that I might be unto them a 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 statutes and ordinances and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel on 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.