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God’s Promises for Those Who Keep His Laws

26 ⌞The Lord continued,⌟ “Never make worthless idols or set up a carved statue or a sacred stone for yourselves. Never cut figures in stone to worship them in your country, because I am the Lord your God. Observe my days of rest as holy days and respect my holy tent. I am the Lord.

“This is what I will do if you will live by my laws and carefully obey my commands:

“I will give you rain at the right time. The land will produce its crops, and the trees in the field will produce their fruit. Threshing [a] time will last until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until planting. You will eat all you want and live securely in your land.

“I will bring peace to your land. You will lie down with no one to scare you. I will remove dangerous animals, and there will be no war in your land. You will chase your enemies, and you will defeat them. Five of you will chase a hundred of them, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand of them. You will defeat your enemies, and I will be pleased with you. Your families will be large, and I will keep my promise [b] to you. 10 You will clear out old food supplies to make room for new ones.

11 “I will put my tent among you, and I will never look at you with disgust. 12 So I will live among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt so that you are no longer slaves of the Egyptians. I have broken their power over you and made you live as a free people.

God’s Curses for Those Who Break His Laws

14 “If you will not listen to me and obey all these commands, 15 if you reject my laws and look at my rules with disgust, if you reject my promise by disobeying my commands, 16 then this is what I will do to you: I will terrorize you with disease and fever. You will suffer from eye problems and depression. You will plant your crops and get nothing because your enemies will eat them. 17 I will condemn you so that you will go down in defeat in front of your enemies. Those who hate you will be your rulers. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.

18 “If you still will not listen to me, I will discipline you seven times for your sins. 19 I will crush your arrogance. You will have no rain, and your land will be as hard as cement. 20 You will work hard for nothing because your land will produce no crops and the trees will produce no fruit.

21 “If you resist and don’t listen to me, I will increase the punishment for your sins seven times. 22 I will send wild animals among you. They will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, and make you so few that your roads will be deserted.

23 “If this discipline does not help and you still resist, 24 then I, too, will resist you. I will punish you seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise ⌞that you rejected⌟. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy. 26 I will destroy your food supply. Ten women will need only one oven to prepare your food. You will eat and go away hungry.

27 “If in spite of this you do not listen to me and still resist me, 28 I will fiercely resist you. I will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. 30 I will destroy your worship sites, cut down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on top of your dead idols. I will look at you with disgust. 31 I will make your cities deserted and ruin your sacred places. I will no longer accept the soothing aroma from your sacrifices. 32 I will make your land so deserted that your enemies will be shocked as they settle in it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations. War will follow you. Your country will be in ruins. Your cities will be deserted.

34 “Then the land will enjoy its time ⌞to honor the Lord while it lies deserted and you are in your enemies’ land. Then the land will joyfully celebrate its time ⌞to honor the Lord. 35 All the days it lies deserted, it will celebrate the time ⌞to honor the Lord it never celebrated while you lived there. 36 I will fill with despair those who are left in the land of their enemies. The sound of a windblown leaf will make them run. They will run away and fall, but no one will be chasing them. 37 They will stumble over each other, but no one will be after them. They will not be able to stand up to their enemies. 38 They will be destroyed among the nations. The land of their enemies will devour them. 39 Those who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.

God Will Remember His Promise

40 “But if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—the treacherous things they did to oppose me— 41 I will oppose them and bring them into the lands of their enemies. Then, if they humble their uncircumcised hearts and accept their guilt, 42 I will remember my promise to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. I will also remember the land. 43 The land, abandoned by them, will enjoy its time to honor the Lord while it lies deserted without them. They must accept their guilt because they rejected my rules and looked at my laws with disgust. 44 Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or look at them with disgust. I will not reject or cancel my promise to them, because I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake, I will remember the promise to their ancestors. I brought them out of Egypt to be their God while nations looked on. I am the Lord.”

46 These are the laws, rules, and instructions that the Lord gave to the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

Footnotes

  1. 26:5 Threshing   is the process of beating stalks to separate them from the grain.
  2. 26:9 Or “covenant.”

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.

Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.