Blessings for Obedience

Leviticus 26

“‘Y’all must not make worthless idols, or must not raise up a carved image or a pillar. And y’all must not place a carved stone in y’all’s land to bow down to it. For I am YHWH y’all’s God.

“‘Y’all are to keep my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am YHWH.

“‘If y’all walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them, then I will give y’all rains in their season, and the land will give its produce, and the trees of the field will give their fruit. Y’all’s threshing will continue until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until the sowing time. Y’all will eat y’all’s bread to the full, and dwell in y’all’s land safely.

“‘I will grant peace in the land, and y’all will lie down, and no one will make y’all afraid. I will remove evil animals from the land, and the sword will not pass through y’all’s land. Y’all will pursue your* enemies, and they will fall by the sword before y’all. Five of y’all will chase a hundred, and a hundred of y’all will chase ten thousand; and y’all’s enemies will fall before y’all by the sword.

“‘I will have turn to y’all, make y’all fruitful, and multiply y’all, and I will confirm my covenant with y’all. Y’all will eat the previous year’s harvest, and y’all will have to move it because of the new. I will set my dwelling place among y’all, and my soul will not abhor y’all. I will walk among y’all and be y’all’s God, and y’all will be my people. I am YHWH y’all’s God, who brought y’all out of the land of Egypt, so that y’all would not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of y’all’s yoke and enabled y’all walk upright.

Punishment for Disobedience

“‘But if y’all won’t listen to me do not observe all these commandments, and if y’all reject my statutes, and if y’all’s soul abhors my ordinances and won’t do all my commandments, and y’all break my covenant, then I will do this to y’all: I will appoint terror over y’all, a wasting disease and fever that will consume the eyes and drain the soul. Y’all will sow your* seed in vain, for y’all’s enemies will eat it. I will set my face against y’all, and y’all will be struck down before y’all’s enemies. Those who hate y’all will rule over y’all, and y’all will flee when no one is pursuing y’all.

“‘If after these things y’all will not listen to me, then I will punish y’all seven times for y’all’s sins. I will break down y’all’s powerful pride, and I will make y’all’s sky like iron and y’all’s soil like bronze. Y’all’s strength will be spent in vain, because y’all’s land won’t give its produce and the trees of the land yield won’t give their fruit.

“‘If y’all walk in opposition to me, and y’all aren’t willing to listen to me, then I will bring seven times more contaminations on y’all according to y’all’s sins. I will send the wild animals among y’all and they will make y’all childless, destroy y’all’s livestock, and make y’all few in number. Y’all’s roads will become deserted.

“‘And if in spite of these things y’all won’t turn back to me, and y’all walk in opposition to me, then I opposition also walk contrary to y’all. I will strike y’all, even I, seven times for y’all’s sins. I will bring a sword upon y’all that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. When y’all gather in y’all’s cities, I will send the contamination among y’all. Y’all will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break y’all’s supply of bread, ten women will bake y’all’s bread in one oven, and they will deliver y’all’s bread by weight, and y’all will eat but not be satisfied.

“‘And if in spite of this y’all won’t listen to me, but walk in opposition to me, then in my anger I will walk in opposition to y’all. I myself will chastise y’all seven times for y’all’s sins. Y’all will eat the flesh of y’all’s sons; y’all will eat the flesh of y’all’s daughters. I will destroy y’all’s high places, cut down y’all’s incense altars, and cast y’all’s dead bodies upon the bodies of y’all’s idols. My soul will abhor y’all. I will turn y’all’s cities to waste, and will bring y’all’s sanctuaries to desolation. I will not smell the sweet fragrance of y’all’s offerings. I will bring the land into desolation, and y’all’s enemies who dwell in it will be appalled. I will scatter y’all among the nations, and I will draw out a sword after y’all. Y’all’s land will become desolate, and y’all’s cities will become waste. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and y’all are in the land of y’all’s enemies. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it will have rest, the rest that it didn’t have in y’all’s Sabbaths when y’all lived in it.

“‘As for those of y’all who are left, I will bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies so that the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight. They will flee as though fleeing from the sword, and will fall though no one pursues. They will stumble over one another away from the sword, though they are pursued by nothing. Y’all will have no power to stand before y’all’s enemies. Y’all will perish among the nations. The land of y’all’s enemies will eat y’all up. Those of y’all who are left will waste away in their iniquity in the lands of y’all’s enemies; also because of the iniquities of their ancestors they will waste away with them.

“‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, I also walked in opposition to them and brought them into the land of their enemies, but if their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. 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 YHWH their God. But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am YHWH.’”

These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which YHWH made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.