Leviticus 26:14-30

The Consequences of Disobedience

26:14 “‘If, however, ¹  you do not obey me and keep ²  all these commandments – 26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep ³  all my commandments and you break my covenant – 26:16 I for my part ⁴  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ⁵  You will sow your seed in vain because ⁶  your enemies will eat it. ⁷  26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

26:18 “‘If, in spite of all these things, ⁸  you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. ⁹  26:19 I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze. 26:20 Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land ¹⁰  will not produce their fruit.

26:21 “‘If you walk in hostility against me ¹¹  and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction ¹²  seven times according to your sins. 26:22 I will send the wild animals ¹³  against you and they will bereave you of your children, ¹⁴  annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population ¹⁵  so that your roads will become deserted.

26:23 “‘If in spite of these things ¹⁶  you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me, ¹⁷  26:24 I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you ¹⁸  seven times on account of your sins. 26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ¹⁹  Although ²⁰  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ²¹  26:26 When I break off your supply of bread, ²²  ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, ²³  and you will eat and not be satisfied.

26:27 “‘If in spite of this ²⁴  you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, ²⁵  26:28 I will walk in hostile rage against you ²⁶  and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. ²⁷  26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ²⁸  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²⁹  I will abhor you. ³⁰ 

Deuteronomy 28:15-68

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

28:15 “But if you ignore ³¹  the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: ³²  28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 28:17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 28:18 Your children ³³  will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. ³⁴ 

Curses by Disease and Drought

28:20 “The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you ³⁵  in everything you undertake ³⁶  until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me. ³⁷  28:21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases ³⁸  until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 28:22 He ³⁹  will afflict you with weakness, ⁴⁰  fever, inflammation, infection, ⁴¹  sword, ⁴²  blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 28:23 The ⁴³  sky ⁴⁴  above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 28:24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ⁴⁵  to all the kingdoms of the earth. 28:26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 28:27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28:28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. ⁴⁶  28:29 You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; ⁴⁷  you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you. 28:30 You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape ⁴⁸  her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. 28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you. 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. ⁴⁹  28:33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. 28:34 You will go insane from seeing all this. 28:35 The Lord will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils – from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 28:36 The Lord will force you and your king ⁵⁰  whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. 28:37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.

The Curse of Reversed Status

28:38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. ⁵¹  28:41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity. 28:42 Whirring locusts ⁵²  will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil. 28:43 The foreigners ⁵³  who reside among you will become higher and higher over you and you will become lower and lower. 28:44 They will lend to you but you will not lend to them; they will become the head and you will become the tail!

28:45 All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given ⁵⁴  you. 28:46 These curses ⁵⁵  will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants. ⁵⁶ 

The Curse of Military Siege

28:47 “Because you have not served the Lord your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have, 28:48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty ⁵⁷  you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. They ⁵⁸  will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you. 28:49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth ⁵⁹  as the eagle flies, ⁶⁰  a nation whose language you will not understand, 28:50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 28:51 They ⁶¹  will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, ⁶²  or lambs of your flocks ⁶³  until they have destroyed you. 28:52 They will besiege all of your villages ⁶⁴  until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ⁶⁵  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ⁶⁶  by which your enemies will constrict you. 28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ⁶⁷  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ⁶⁸  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ⁶⁹  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth ⁷⁰  and her newborn children ⁷¹  (since she has nothing else), ⁷²  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

The Curse of Covenant Termination

28:58 “If you refuse to obey ⁷³  all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 28:59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants – great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 28:60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt ⁷⁴  that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. ⁷⁵  28:61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, ⁷⁶  until you have perished. 28:62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, ⁷⁷  because you will have disobeyed ⁷⁸  the Lord your God. 28:63 This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he ⁷⁹  will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. ⁸⁰  28:67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Joshua 24:20

24:20 If ⁸¹  you abandon the Lord and worship ⁸²  foreign gods, he will turn against you; ⁸³  he will bring disaster on you and destroy you, ⁸⁴  though he once treated you well.” ⁸⁵ 

Isaiah 1:20

1:20 But if you refuse and rebel,

you will be devoured ⁸⁶  by the sword.”

Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ⁸⁷ 

Isaiah 3:11

3:11 Too bad for the wicked sinners!

For they will get exactly what they deserve. ⁸⁸ 

Romans 2:8-9

2:8 but ⁸⁹  wrath and anger to those who live in selfish ambition ⁹⁰  and do not obey the truth but follow ⁹¹  unrighteousness. 2:9 There will be ⁹²  affliction and distress on everyone ⁹³  who does evil, on the Jew first and also the Greek, ⁹⁴ 

[26:14]  ¹ tn Heb “And if.”

[26:14]  ² tn Heb “and do not do.”

[26:15]  ³ tn Heb “to not do.”

[26:16]  ⁴ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

[26:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

[26:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

[26:16]  ⁷ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

[26:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “And if until these.”

[26:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will add to discipline you seven [times] on your sins.”

[26:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the tree of the land will not give its fruit.” The collective singular has been translated as a plural. Tg. Onq., some medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “the field” as in v. 4, rather than “the land.”

[26:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “hostile with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in v. 24 and 27.

[26:21]  ¹² tn Heb “your blow, stroke”; cf. TEV “punishment”; NLT “I will inflict you with seven more disasters.”

[26:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.

[26:22]  ¹⁴ tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[26:22]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and diminish you.”

[26:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And if in these.”

[26:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in vv. 24 and 27.

[26:24]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and I myself will also strike you.”

[26:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

[26:25]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

[26:25]  ²¹ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).

[26:26]  ²² tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).

[26:26]  ²³ tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”

[26:27]  ²⁴ tn Heb “And if in this.”

[26:27]  ²⁵ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:28]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in rage of hostility with you”; NASB “with wrathful hostility”; NRSV “I will continue hostile to you in fury”; CEV “I’ll get really furious.”

[26:29]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.” The phrase “you will eat” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:30]  ²⁸ sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

[26:30]  ²⁹ tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

[26:30]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

[28:15]  ³¹ tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”

[28:15]  ³² tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”

[28:18]  ³³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:19]  ³⁴ sn See note on the similar expression in v. 6.

[28:20]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke” (NASB and NIV similar); NRSV “disaster, panic, and frustration.”

[28:20]  ³⁶ tn Heb “in all the stretching out of your hand.”

[28:20]  ³⁷ tc For the MT first person common singular suffix (“me”), the LXX reads either “Lord” (Lucian) or third person masculine singular suffix (“him”; various codices). The MT’s more difficult reading probably represents the original text.

[28:21]  ³⁸ tn Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”

[28:22]  ³⁹ tn Heb “The Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:22]  ⁴⁰ tn Or perhaps “consumption” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. NAB “wasting”; NIV, NLT “wasting disease”).

[28:22]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”

[28:22]  ⁴² tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:23]  ⁴³ tc The MT reads “Your.” The LXX reads “Heaven will be to you.”

[28:23]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[28:25]  ⁴⁵ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

[28:28]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “heart” (so KJV, NASB).

[28:29]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “you will not cause your ways to prosper.”

[28:30]  ⁴⁸ tc For MT reading שָׁגַל (shagal, “ravish; violate”), the Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate presume the less violent שָׁכַב (shakhav, “lie with”). The unexpected counterpart to betrothal here favors the originality of the MT.

[28:32]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “and there will be no power in your hand”; NCV “there will be nothing you can do.”

[28:36]  ⁵⁰ tc The LXX reads the plural “kings.”

[28:40]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “your olives will drop off” (נָשַׁל, nashal), referring to the olives dropping off before they ripen.

[28:42]  ⁵² tn The Hebrew term denotes some sort of buzzing or whirring insect; some have understood this to be a type of locust (KJV, NIV, CEV), but other insects have also been suggested: “buzzing insects” (NAB); “the cricket” (NASB); “the cicada” (NRSV).

[28:43]  ⁵³ tn Heb “the foreigner.” This is a collective singular and has therefore been translated as plural; this includes the pronouns in the following verse, which are also singular in the Hebrew text.

[28:45]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “commanded”; NAB, NIV, TEV “he gave you.”

[28:46]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the curses mentioned previously) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[28:46]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[28:48]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “lack of everything.”

[28:48]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “he” (also later in this verse). The pronoun is a collective singular referring to the enemies (cf. CEV, NLT). Many translations understand the singular pronoun to refer to the Lord (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV).

[28:49]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “from the end of the earth.”

[28:49]  ⁶⁰ tn Some translations understand this to mean “like an eagle swoops down” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), comparing the swift attack of an eagle to the attack of the Israelites’ enemies.

[28:51]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).

[28:51]  ⁶² tn Heb “increase of herds.”

[28:51]  ⁶³ tn Heb “growth of flocks.”

[28:52]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.

[28:53]  ⁶⁵ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”

[28:53]  ⁶⁶ tn Heb “siege and stress.”

[28:55]  ⁶⁷ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

[28:56]  ⁶⁸ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

[28:56]  ⁶⁹ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

[28:57]  ⁷⁰ tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”

[28:57]  ⁷¹ tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”

[28:57]  ⁷² tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”

[28:58]  ⁷³ tn Heb “If you are not careful to do.”

[28:60]  ⁷⁴ sn These are the plagues the Lord inflicted on the Egyptians prior to the exodus which, though they did not fall upon the Israelites, must have caused great terror (cf. Exod 15:26).

[28:60]  ⁷⁵ tn Heb “will cling to you” (so NIV); NLT “will claim you.”

[28:61]  ⁷⁶ tn The Hebrew term תּוֹרָה (torah) can refer either (1) to the whole Pentateuch or, more likely, (2) to the book of Deuteronomy or even (3) only to this curse section of the covenant text. “Scroll” better reflects the actual document, since “book” conveys the notion of a bound book with pages to the modern English reader. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the book of this law”; NIV, NLT “this Book of the Law”; TEV “this book of God’s laws and teachings.”

[28:62]  ⁷⁷ tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[28:62]  ⁷⁸ tn Heb “have not listened to the voice of.”

[28:63]  ⁷⁹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:66]  ⁸⁰ tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.

[24:20]  ⁸¹ tn Or “when.”

[24:20]  ⁸² tn Or “and serve.”

[24:20]  ⁸³ tn The words “against you” are added for clarification.

[24:20]  ⁸⁴ tn Heb “bring you to an end.”

[24:20]  ⁸⁵ tn Heb “after he did good for you.”

[1:20]  ⁸⁶ sn The wordplay in the Hebrew draws attention to the options. The people can obey, in which case they will “eat” v. 19 (תֹּאכֵלוּ [to’khelu], Qal active participle of אָכַל) God’s blessing, or they can disobey, in which case they will be devoured (Heb “eaten,” תְּאֻכְּלוּ, [tÿ’ukkÿlu], Qal passive/Pual of אָכַל) by God’s judgment.

[1:20]  ⁸⁷ tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” The introductory כִּי (ki) may be asseverative (as reflected in the translation) or causal/explanatory, explaining why the option chosen by the people will become reality (it is guaranteed by the divine word).

[3:11]  ⁸⁸ tn Heb “for the work of his hands will be done to him.”

[2:8]  ⁸⁹ tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.

[2:8]  ⁹⁰ tn Grk “those who [are] from selfish ambition.”

[2:8]  ⁹¹ tn Grk “are persuaded by, obey.”

[2:9]  ⁹² tn No verb is expressed in this verse, but the verb “to be” is implied by the Greek construction. Literally “suffering and distress on everyone…”

[2:9]  ⁹³ tn Grk “every soul of man.”

[2:9]  ⁹⁴ sn Paul uses the term Greek here and in v. 10 to refer to non-Jews, i.e., Gentiles.