Reward for Obedience

26 “ ‘Do not make idolsl or set up an imagem or a sacred stonen for yourselves, and do not place a carved stoneo in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.

2 “ ‘Observe my Sabbathsp and have reverence for my sanctuary.q I am the Lord.

3 “ ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obeyr my commands, 4 I will send you rains in its season,t and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.u 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you wantv and live in safety in your land.w

6 “ ‘I will grant peace in the land,x and you will lie downy and no one will make you afraid.z I will remove wild beastsa from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies,b and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Fivec of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.d

9 “ ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers,e and I will keep my covenantf with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new.g 11 I will put my dwelling placea h among you, and I will not abhor you.i 12 I will walkj among you and be your God,k and you will be my people.l 13 I am the Lord your God,m who brought you out of Egyptn so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yokeo and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

Punishment for Disobedience

14 “ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,p 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my lawsq and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant,r 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fevers that will destroy your sight and sap your strength.t You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.u 17 I will set my facev against you so that you will be defeatedw by your enemies;x those who hate you will rule over you,y and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.z

18 “ ‘If after all this you will not listen to me,a I will punishb you for your sins seven times over.c 19 I will break down your stubborn prided and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.e 20 Your strength will be spent in vain,f because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.g

21 “ ‘If you remain hostileh toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over,i as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animalsj against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so fewk in number that your roads will be deserted.l

23 “ ‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correctionm but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostilen toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the swordo on you to avengep the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plagueq among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread,r ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.

27 “ ‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to mes but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my angert I will be hostileu toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.v 29 You will eatw the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.x 30 I will destroy your high places,y cut down your incense altarsz and pile your dead bodiesb on the lifeless forms of your idols,a and I will abhorb you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruinsc and lay wasted your sanctuaries,e and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings.f 32 I myself will lay waste the land,g so that your enemies who live there will be appalled.h 33 I will scatteri you among the nationsj and will draw out my swordk and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste,l and your cities will lie in ruins.m 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolaten and you are in the country of your enemies;o then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the restp it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.

36 “ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leafq will put them to flight.r They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them.s 37 They will stumble over one anothert as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies.u 38 You will perishv among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you.w 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’x sins they will waste away.y

40 “ ‘But if they will confessz their sinsa and the sins of their ancestorsb—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostilec toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised heartsd are humblede and they payf for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacobg and my covenant with Isaach and my covenant with Abraham,i and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be desertedj by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejectedk my laws and abhorred my decrees.l 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies,m I will not reject them or abhorn them so as to destroy them completely,o breaking my covenantp with them. I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will rememberq the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egyptr in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’ ”

46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinais between himself and the Israelites through Moses.t