The Blessings of Obedience (Leviticus 25:18–22)
1 UST If you do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and faithfully obey everything that I am today commanding you to do, he will cause you to become greater than any other people group on the earth. BSB BSB: “Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 UST If you obey Yahweh your God, he will bless you in all these ways: BSB BSB: And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God:
3 UST He will bless everything that you do when you are in the cities, and he will bless everything that you do when you are working in the fields. BSB BSB: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
4 UST He will bless you by giving you many children, abundant crops, plenty of fertile cattle, and many sheep. BSB BSB: The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
5 UST He will bless you by giving you plenty of grain to make bread. BSB BSB: Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.
6 UST He will bless you everywhere— whether you are at home or elsewhere. BSB BSB: You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
7 UST Yahweh will enable you to defeat the armies of your enemies; they will attack you from one direction, but they will run away from you in many directions. BSB BSB: The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.
8 UST Yahweh will bless you by filling your barns with grain, and he will bless all the work that you do; he will bless you in the land that he is giving to you. BSB BSB: The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you.
9 UST If you obey all that Yahweh our God is commanding you to do, he will keep you as his own holy people, just as he promised you. BSB BSB: The LORD will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.
10 UST Then all the peoples on the earth will realize that you belong to Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you. BSB BSB: Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.
11 UST And Yahweh will cause you to prosper very much. He will give you many children, many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he solemnly promised to our ancestors that he would give to you. BSB BSB: The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
12 UST At the time that your land needs rain, Yahweh will send it from where he stores it in the sky, and he will bless all your work, with the result that you will be able to lend money to many other people groups, but you will not need to borrow money from them. BSB BSB: The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.
13 UST If you faithfully obey all of the commands of Yahweh our God that I am giving you today, then Yahweh will cause your people group to be superior{ to other people groups}, not inferior{ to them}. BSB BSB: The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.
14 UST { Yahweh will do all these things for you if} you do not stop obeying what I am commanding you today, and if you never worship other gods. BSB BSB: Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them.
The Curses of Disobedience (Leviticus 20:1–9; Leviticus 26:14–39)
15 UST But if you do not do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and do not faithfully obey all his rules and regulations that I am today commanding you to do, he will curse you in all these ways: BSB BSB: If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 UST He will curse everything that you do when you are in the cities, and he will curse everything that you do when you are working in the fields. BSB BSB: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
17 UST He will curse you by not giving you much grain to make bread. BSB BSB: Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.
18 UST He will curse you by giving you few and sickly children, crops, cattle, and sheep. BSB BSB: The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.
19 UST He will curse you everywhere— whether you are at home or elsewhere. BSB BSB: You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20 UST Yahweh will curse you by confusing and frustrating you in all that you do until your enemies destroy you. They will quickly kill you for your wicked sins and for rebelling against him. BSB BSB: The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him.
21 UST Yahweh will make you very sick, until all of you die in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. BSB BSB: The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess.
22 UST Yahweh will afflict you with diseases that shrivel your bodies, with fever, with inflammation. It will be extremely hot, there will be violence everywhere, there will be scorching winds, and he will cause your crops to rot. He will afflict you with these until you die. BSB BSB: The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.
23 UST It will not rain so the ground will be very hard and unproductive. BSB BSB: The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
24 UST Instead of sending rain, Yahweh will send strong winds to blow sand and dust over your land to{ ruin your crops and} starve you to death. BSB BSB: The LORD will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.
25 UST Yahweh will enable your enemies to defeat you; your soldiers will attack them from one direction, but will run away from them in many directions. People from every other nation will be horrified at what Yahweh has done to you. BSB BSB: The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 UST You will die, and birds and wild animals will come and eat your corpses, and there will not be anyone to scare them away. BSB BSB: Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.
27 UST Yahweh will cause you to have boils on your skin, like he caused the people of Egypt to have many years ago. He will cause you to have tumors, open sores, and your skin will itch, but there will be nothing that will cure those diseases. BSB BSB: The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.
28 UST Yahweh will cause some of you to become insane; he will cause some of you to become blind, and he will cause some of your minds to become confused. BSB BSB: The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,
29 UST At midday you will feel around with your hands, like you are blind or in the dark. You will not prosper in anything that you do. Enemies will continually oppress and rob you, and there will not be anyone to help you. BSB BSB: and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.
30 UST A man will formally arrange to marry a young woman, but someone else will rape her. You will build houses, but you will never live in them. You will plant grapevines, but you will not pick any grapes or drink any wine. BSB BSB: You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit.
31 UST Your enemies will butcher your cattle while you watch them, but you will not get any of the meat to eat. They will drag away your donkeys while you watch them do it, and they will not give them back to you. They will take away your sheep and there will not be anyone to help you rescue them. BSB BSB: Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you.
32 UST Foreigners will steal your sons and daughters. You will constantly watch for your children to return, but you will not be able to do anything for them. BSB BSB: Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.
33 UST People from a foreign nation will eat all the crops that you worked hard to produce, and they will constantly treat you harshly and cruelly. BSB BSB: A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.
34 UST All these terrible things that you see will cause you to become insane. BSB BSB: You will be driven mad by the sights you see.
35 UST Yahweh will cause painful boils that no one can heal to cover your knees and legs, and you will have boils from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. BSB BSB: The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
36 UST Yahweh will cause enemies to take your king(who you will have chosen for yourself) and the rest of you to another country where you and your ancestors have never lived. There you will worship strange gods that men made of wood or stone. BSB BSB: The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.
37 UST The people in the nations where Yahweh drives you will use what has happened to you as a horror story, a proverb, and something to mock. BSB BSB: You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
38 UST You will plant plenty of seeds in your fields, but you will reap only a small harvest, because locusts will eat the crops. BSB BSB: You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.
39 UST You will plant grapevines and take care of them, but you will not pick any grapes or drink any wine, because worms will eat the vines. BSB BSB: You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.
40 UST Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not get any olive oil to rub on your skin because the olives will drop on the ground before they are ripe. BSB BSB: You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off.
41 UST You will have sons and daughters, but they will not stay with you, because enemies will capture and take them away. BSB BSB: You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.
42 UST Swarms of crickets will eat your crops and the leaves of all your trees. BSB BSB: Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
43 UST Foreigners who live in your land will become more and more powerful, and you will become less and less powerful. BSB BSB: The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower.
44 UST They will have money to lend to you, but you will not have any money to lend to them. They will be superior to you, and you will be inferior to them. BSB BSB: He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.
45 UST When all these disasters happen to you and continue to happen to you until they destroy you, you will know it is because you did not do what Yahweh your God told you to do and did not obey all the rules and regulations that he gave to you. BSB BSB: All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you.
46 UST These disasters that Yahweh will bring on you and your descendants will forever show everyone his mighty power. BSB BSB: These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.
47 UST Because Yahweh our God blessed you abundantly in many ways, you should have served him very joyfully, but you did not do that. BSB BSB: Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance,
48 UST Therefore, you will work for the enemies whom Yahweh will send to attack you. You will be hungry and thirsty; you will not have clothes to wear and you will lack everything else that you need. Yahweh will cause you to become slaves and work hard until he destroys you. BSB BSB: you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
49 UST Yahweh will bring against you an army from very far away. Their soldiers will speak a language that you will not understand. They will swoop down on you quickly like an eagle. BSB BSB: The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,
50 UST They will be fierce looking. They will not act mercifully toward anyone, not even old people or young children. BSB BSB: a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
51 UST They will kill and eat your livestock, and they will eat your crops, and you will starve. They will not leave for you any grain, wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs. You will all die from hunger. BSB BSB: They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.
52 UST Your enemies will surround your towns throughout the land that Yahweh your God is about to give to you. They will break down the high and strong walls around your towns, walls which you trusted would protect you. BSB BSB: They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you.
53 UST When your enemies are surrounding your towns, you will be so extremely hungry that you will eat your own sons and daughters whom Yahweh your God has given to you. BSB BSB: Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.
54 UST When your enemies have surrounded your towns, even the most dainty and sensitive men among you will want food very desperately, with the result that they will kill their own children and eat them, because they will not have anything else to eat. They will be greedy and not even share any of it with their brothers or wives whom they love very much or with any of their other children who are still alive. BSB BSB: The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,
56 UST Even the most dainty and sensitive women among you, so sensitive and dainty that they have never walked barefoot, will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that, after they give birth to a child, they will secretly kill the baby and eat it and also eat the afterbirth. They will be greedy and will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children. BSB BSB: The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter
58 UST If you do not faithfully obey all of the laws that I am writing, and if you do not have the utmost respect for Yahweh our glorious and amazing God, BSB BSB: If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—
59 UST he will punish you by sending on you and on your descendants great afflictions and plagues which will last for many years. BSB BSB: He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.
60 UST He will bring on you all the plagues that he sent on the people of Egypt, which terrified you, and you will always be sick. BSB BSB: He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.
61 UST He will also send on you many other sicknesses and diseases that I have not talked about in these laws, until you all will die. BSB BSB: The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
62 UST You became as numerous as the stars in the sky, but only a few of you will remain alive, if you do not obey Yahweh your God. BSB BSB: You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
63 UST Yahweh was very happy to do good things for you and to cause you to become very numerous, but now he will be happy to ruin you and get rid of you. Those of you who do not die from these plagues, he will snatch away from the land that you will soon be entering to possess. BSB BSB: Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
64 UST Yahweh will scatter you among all the peoples of the earth, and in those places, you will worship other gods that men made of wood or stone, gods which you and your ancestors have never known. BSB BSB: Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
65 UST In those areas you will not have any peace or rest. Yahweh will make you afraid, hopeless, and discouraged. BSB BSB: Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.
66 UST You will always be afraid that your enemies will kill you. You will be very fearful, all day and all night. BSB BSB: So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival.
67 UST Because you will be very fearful and because you will very distressed because of the terrible things that you see, each morning you will say‘I wish it were evening already!’ and each evening you will say‘I wish it were morning already!’ BSB BSB: In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.
68 UST Yahweh will send some of you back to Egypt in ships, even though he promised that he would never force you to go there again. There in Egypt you will try to sell yourselves to become slaves of your enemies{ in order to have food to eat}, but no one will buy you.” BSB BSB: The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.