Leviticus 26

¹ ' "You wil not make idols for yourselves; you will not erect statues or cultic stones, or erect carvedstones in your country, for you to worship: for I, Yahweh, am your God.

² You will keep my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.

³ "If you live according to my laws, if you keep my commandments and put them into practice,

⁴ I shal give you the rain you need at the right time; the soil wil yield its produce and the trees of thecountryside their fruit;

⁵ you wil thresh until vintage time and gather grapes until sowing time. You wil eat your fill of bread andlive secure in your land.

⁶ "I shall give peace in the land, and you wil go to sleep with no one to frighten you. I shal rid the land of beasts of prey. The sword wil not pass through your land.

⁷ You will pursue your enemies and they wil fal before your sword;

⁸ five of you pursuing a hundred of them, one hundred pursuing ten thousand; and your enemies wil falbefore your sword.

⁹ "I shall turn towards you, I shal make you fertile and make your numbers grow, and I shal uphold mycovenant with you.

¹⁰ "Having eaten al you need of last year's harvest, you will throw out the old to make room for the new.

¹¹ "I shal fix my home among you and never reject you.

¹² I shall live among you; I shall be your God and you will be my people,

¹³ I, Yahweh your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you should be their slaves no longer, andwho broke the bonds of your yoke and made you walk with head held high.

¹⁴ "But if you wil not listen to me and do not put all these commandments into practice,

¹⁵ if you reject my laws and detest my customs, and you break my covenant by not putting al mycommandments into practice,

¹⁶ this is how I shal treat you: "I shal subject you to terror, consumption and fever, making you dim ofsight and short of breath. You wil sow your seed in vain, for your enemies wil eat it.

¹⁷ I shall turn against you and you wil be defeated by your enemies. Your foes wil have the masteryover you, and you wil flee when no one is pursuing you.

¹⁸ "And if, in spite of this, you will not listen to me, I shal punish you seven times over for your sins.

¹⁹ I shall break your proud strength. I shal make the sky like iron for you, and your soil like bronze.

²⁰ You wil wear out your strength in vain, your land will not yield its produce, nor the trees of the countrytheir fruit.

²¹ "And if you go against me and wil not listen to me, I shall heap seven times more plagues on you foryour sins.

²² I shall send wild animals to attack you and rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and reduceyour numbers until your roads are deserted.

²³ "And if that does not reform you, and you stil go against me,

²⁴ then I shal go against you and punish you another seven times over for your sins.

²⁵ I shall bring the sword on you, which will avenge the covenant, and when you huddle inside yourtowns, I shal send pestilence among you, and you will fal into the enemy's clutches.

²⁶ When I take away the bread which supports you, ten women wil be able to bake your bread in oneoven and wil then dole your bread out by weight; you wil eat but not be satisfied.

²⁷ "And if, in spite of this, you will not listen to me but go against me,

²⁸ I shall go against you in fury and punish you seven times over for your sins.

²⁹ You wil eat the flesh of your own sons, you wil eat the flesh of your own daughters.

³⁰ I shall destroy your high places and smash your incense-altars; I shal pile your corpses on thecorpses of your foul idols and shall reject you.

³¹ I shall reduce your cities to ruins; I shal lay waste your sanctuary and refuse to inhale from yousmel s intended to please.

³² I shall make such a desolation of the country that your enemies who come to live there wil beappal ed by it.

³³ And I shal scatter you among the nations. I shal unsheathe the sword against you, reducing yourcountry to desert and your towns to ruins.

³⁴ Then the country wil indeed observe its Sabbaths, al the while it lies deserted, while you are in thecountry of your enemies. Then indeed the country wil rest and observe its Sabbaths.

³⁵ And as it lies deserted it will rest, as it never did on your Sabbaths when you were living there.

³⁶ I shall strike such fear into the hearts of those of you who survive in the countries of their enemiesthat the sound of a fal ing leaf will set them fleeing; they wil flee as though fleeing from the sword, and fal whenno one is pursuing.

³⁷ They will stumble over one another as though fleeing before the sword, when no one is pursuing. You wil be powerless to stand up to your enemies;

³⁸ you wil perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies wil swal ow you up.

³⁹ Those of you who survive wil pine away in their guilt in the countries of their enemies and, bearingthe guilt of their ancestors too, wil pine away like them.

⁴⁰ "Then they shal admit their guilt and that of their ancestors and their infidelities against me, andfurther, their setting themselves against me.

⁴¹ "I in my turn wil go against them and bring them into the land of their enemies. Then theiruncircumcised hearts wil grow humble and then they wil accept the punishment for their guilt.

⁴² I shall remember my covenant with Jacob, I shal remember my covenant with Isaac and mycovenant with Abraham; and I shal remember the country too.

⁴³ "Abandoned, the country wil keep its Sabbaths, as it lies deserted in their absence, and they wilhave to accept the punishment for their guilt, since they detested my customs and rejected my laws.

⁴⁴ "Yet, in spite of al this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I shall not so utterly reject ordetest them as to destroy them completely and break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God.

⁴⁵ For their sake I shall remember the covenant I made with those first generations that I brought out ofEgypt while other nations watched, so that I should be their God, I, Yahweh." '

⁴⁶ Such were the decrees, customs and laws which Yahweh established between himself and theIsraelites on Mount Sinai through Moses.