Leviticus 26 · The Lantern

Additional Blessings of Obedience

You shall not make worthless idols for yourselves, and a carved image or a standing stone you shall not raise up for yourselves, and a figured stone you shall not set in your land, to bow down on it — for I am the LORD your God.

You shall keep my sabbaths, and my sanctuary you shall fear. I am the LORD.

If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments and do them,

then I will give your rains in their season, and the land shall give its yield, and the tree of the field shall give its fruit.

And your threshing shall reach to the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall reach to the sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in security in your land.

And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down with no one making you afraid; and I will make evil beasts cease from the land, and the sword shall not pass through your land.

And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

"And you shall pursue your enemies". What "enemies", except "the devil" himself "and his angels" and the malignant spirits and "the unclean demons"? We shall pursue them not only that we may drive them away from ourselves, but also from others whom they assail, if we keep the divine precepts. "You shall pursue", He says, "your enemies, and they shall fall before you by death".

"You will rout your enemies." Of what enemies do we speak, except the devil himself and his angels? We rout them not only by driving them from our own hearts, but we repel them far away from others whom they disturb or attack or overcome. We do this by our advice or reproof or prayer, if we preserve the divine precepts. Thus through death the enemy falls in our sight.

And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

And I will turn to you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you; and I will establish my covenant with you.

And you shall eat old grain long stored, and clear out the old to make way for the new.

"I will establish", He says, "my covenant with you. And you shall eat the old things and the old of the old, and you shall cast out the old from before the face of the new". How do we "cast out the old from before the face of the new"?

For just as the teachings of the new and old Testaments should come together, as it is written: "Consume the old things of the ancients, and remove the old things from the face of the new ones." Let the knowledge of the patriarchs be food for us, let the soul feast on the oracles of the prophets: let the inner being be nourished by such sustenance.

And we eat the oldest of the old [grain] when we retain in our hearts the sweet memory of the old commandment which was given to the human race from the beginning, by loving the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our strength, and by loving our neighbor as ourselves.

And I will set my Dwelling in your midst, and my soul will not loathe you.

And I will walk about in your midst, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?

It does not seem to me that God promises this, that He will walk in the land of the Jews, but that, if anyone should deserve to be of so pure a heart as to be capable of God, in him God says that He "walks". — "And you shall be to me a people".

God will be the source of every satisfaction, more than any heart can rightly crave, more than life and health, food and wealth, glory and honor, peace and every good—so that God, as St. Paul said, "may be all in all." He will be the consummation of all our desiring—the object of our unending vision, of our unlessening love, of our unwearying praise.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from being their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.

Punishments for Disobedience

But if you do not listen to me, and do not do all these commandments,

and if you reject my statutes, and if your soul loathes my judgments, so as not to do all my commandments, so that you break my covenant —

then I in turn will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, wasting disease and fever that finish off the eyes and drain the soul. And you shall sow your seed for nothing, for your enemies shall eat it.

And I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee with no one chasing you.

And if after all this you do not listen to me, then I will go on to discipline you sevenfold for your sins.

And I will break the pride of your strength, and I will make your heavens like iron and your land like bronze.

And your strength shall be spent for nothing — for your land shall not give its yield, and the tree of the land shall not give its fruit.

And if you walk contrary to me and are not willing to listen to me, I will add to you blows sevenfold, according to your sins.

And I will send against you the animals of the field, and they shall bereave you, and cut off your livestock, and make you few — and your roads shall lie desolate.

And if by these things you are not disciplined toward me, but walk contrary to me,

then I in turn will walk contrary to you; and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.

And I will bring on you a sword avenging the vengeance of the covenant. And you shall be gathered into your cities; and I will send pestilence into your midst, and you shall be given into the hand of the enemy.

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall return your bread by weight; and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

And if in spite of this you do not listen to me, but walk contrary to me,

then I will walk contrary to you in fury; and I in turn will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.

And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat.

And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and pile your corpses on the corpses of your idols — and my soul will loathe you.

And I will make your cities a ruin, and make your sanctuaries desolate; and I will not smell your soothing aromas.

And I myself will make the land desolate, so that your enemies who settle in it are appalled at it.

And you I will disperse among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you; and your land shall become a desolation, and your cities shall become a ruin.

Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths, all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths.

All the days of its desolation it shall rest — the rest it did not have in your sabbaths, when you were dwelling on it.

And those of you who are left — I will bring faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as one flees the sword, and fall with no one chasing.

And they shall stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is chasing; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you.

And those of you who are left shall rot away in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers with them they shall rot away.

God Remembers Those Who Repent

But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in the unfaithfulness by which they were unfaithful to me — and also that they walked contrary to me,

so that I in turn walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies — if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they accept their iniquity,

then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham I will remember — and the land I will remember.

For the land shall be abandoned by them, and shall enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they shall accept their iniquity — because, yes because, they rejected my judgments, and their soul loathed my statutes.

Yet even so, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, and I will not loathe them so as to finish them off, breaking my covenant with them — for I am the LORD their God.

And I will remember for them the covenant of the ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be their God. I am the LORD.”

These are the statutes and the judgments and the instructions that the LORD gave between himself and the sons of Israel, on Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

Leviticus26

Additional Blessings of Obedience

Punishments for Disobedience

God Remembers Those Who Repent