Open English Translation LEV Chapter 26

26 You all mustn’t make worthless idols or carved images for yourselves, or set up sacred pillars. In your country, you must never bow down to an engraved stone image, because I am your god Yahweh.[ref] 2 You all must observe my rest days and honour my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.

3 If you’ll all follow my instructions and remember my rules and obey them, 4 then I’ll give you all rain in the proper season, and the land will produce crops and the trees in the countryside will produce fruit. 5 The grain threshing will continue until the grape harvest, and the grape harvesting will continue until it’s time to plant new crops, and so you’ll all have plenty of food and you’ll live securely there on your land.

6 Then I’ll give peace in your country so that you’ll all sleep without being afraid. I’ll remove the wild animals from your area and there’ll be no raids or wars in your region. 7 You’ll all be able to chase away your enemies and destroy them—8 five of you will chase away a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase away ten thousand, and you’ll be able to defeat your enemies.

9 I’ll give you all my attention and bless you with many children, and I’ll maintain my agreement with you all. 10 You’ll all still be eating the previous year’s grain when the new harvest starts, and you’ll have to move out that left-over grain to make room for the new. 11 Then I’ll put my residence among you all and won’t reject you, 12 and I’ll walk among you and be your god, and you’ll all be my people. 13 I am your god Yahweh who brought you all out from being slaves in Egypt, and I broke the chains off you so that you all could walk with heads erect.

14 However, if you all won’t listen to me and won’t follow all those instructions,[ref] 15 and if you all reject my regulations and my values to the point of hating my commands, thus breaking my agreement, 16 then this is what I’ll do to you all: I’ll send sudden terror to you all, and wasting diseases and sicknesses. You’ll all be wasting your time sowing seeds because your enemies will eat the harvest. 17 I’ll take action against you, and you’ll be defeated by your enemies. You’ll be ruled over by those who hate you, and you’ll all run away frightened even when no one’s chasing you.

18 If you all still won’t listen to me after that, then I’ll continue on to discipline you seven times over for your disobedience. 19 Then I’ll smash your strong pride, and I’ll make the sky like iron with no rain and your land hard like bronze. 20 Your energy spent working your land will be just wasted as your land won’t produce its crops, and the trees won’t produce any fruit.

21 Then if you’re all still being contrary and unwilling to listen to me, then I’ll send seven times more plagues according to your disobedience. 22 Then I’ll send in the wild animals to make you childless and to cut back your livestocks, thus diminishing your numbers and leaving your roads desolate.

23 Then after that if you all still won’t accept my discipline and continue to oppose me, 24 then I myself will oppose you all and punish you all seven times over for your disobedience. 25 I’ll send armies against you all to avenge the breaking of our agreement. You’ll be shut into your cities where I’ll send diseases in for you all, and allow your enemies to defeat you. 26 When I limit your food supplies, ten women will bake bread in one oven and it will be rationed by weight—you’ll all eat but never be satisfied.

27 In spite of all that, if you all still won’t listen to me, and continue to oppose me, 28 then I’ll be in a hostile rage against you all and I’ll discipline you seven times more for your disobedience 29 and you’ll start eating your own sons and daughters. 30 I’ll destroy your hilltop shrines and cut down you incense altars, then I’ll pile your corpses on top of your idols’ corpses, and I myself will detest you all. 31 I’ll make your cities into heaps of rubble and I’ll devastate your sanctuaries and no longer smell the pleasing aromas of your sacrifices.

32 I’ll devastate the region, and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. 33 Then I’ll scatter you all among other nations and then armies will come in after you and your land will become desolate and your cities will become rubble, 34 and the land will enjoy all its rest times while it’s desolate and you’re all in your enemies’ countries. The land will stop producing and enjoy its times of resting. 35 It will rest all through its desolation since it didn’t get its rest times when you lived on it.

36 Then those of you who are left in your enemies’ countries, I’ll make you paranoid there—even the sound of a blowing leaf will make them run away as if someone’s chasing them with a sword, and they’ll fall down even when no one’s chasing them. 37 They’ll stumble over each other as if being attacked, but there won’t be anyone chasing them, and then you all won’t have the energy to stand up against your enemies. 38 You’ll die in various countries and your enemies will consume you. 39 Those of you who are left will rot away amongst the wickedness in your enemies’ countries and because of the wickedness of their ancestors.

40 However, if they confess their wickedness and their ancestors’ wickedness, that they’ve disobeyed and neglected me, and been hostile towards me, 41 (and that I became hostile toward them and took their into their enemies’ countries,) and humble their undisciplined hearts and admit their disobedience, 42 then I’ll remember my agreements with Yakov (Jacob) and with Yitshak (Isaac) and with Avraham, and I’ll remember this land. 43 The land here will have been deserted by them and will have enjoyed its times of rest, and they’ll accept their wickedness because they rejected my values and they really detested my regulations. 44 Despite that, I won’t reject them in their enemies’ countries, and I won’t detest them enough to completely destroy them and to break my agreement with them, because I am their god Yahweh. 45 I’ll remember the earlier agreement with their ancestors that I brought out of Egypt while all the nations watched me be their god. I am Yahweh.

46 The above are the instructions and values and rules that Yahweh instilled between him and the Israelis through Mosheh (Moses) there at Mt. Sinai.