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Blessings of Obedience

^1 (F1)'You shall not make ^(C1)idols for yourselves, nor shall you erect ^(C2)an image, ^(C3)a sacred pillar or an obelisk, nor shall you place any ^(C4)figured stone in your land so that you may bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.² '^(C1)You shall keep My Sabbaths and have reverence for My sanctuary. I am the LORD.³ '^(C1)If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and obediently do them,^4 (C1)then I will give you rain in its season, and the land will yield her produce and the trees of the field bear their fruit.⁵ '^(C1)And your threshing season will last until grape gathering and the grape gathering time will last until planting, and you will eat your bread and be filled and ^(C2)live securely in your land.⁶ '^(C1)I will also grant peace in the land, so that ^(C2)you may lie down and there will be no one to make you afraid. ^(C3)I will also eliminate harmful animals from the land, and ^(C4)no sword will pass through your land.⁷ 'And you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.⁸ '^(C1)Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will put ten thousand to flight; your enemies will fall before you by the sword.⁹ 'For I will turn toward you with favor and regard and ^(C1)make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will ^(C2)establish and confirm My covenant with you. ^(VR1)10 '^(C1)You will eat the old supply of abundant produce, and clear out the old to make room for the new.¹¹ '^(C1)I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject nor separate itself from you.¹² '^(C1)I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.¹³ '^(C1)I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves; and ^(C2)I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright with heads held high as free men.

Penalties of Disobedience

¹⁴ '^(C1)But if you do not obey Me and do not obediently do all these commandments,¹⁵ if, instead, you ^(C1)reject My statutes, and if your soul rejects My ordinances, so that you will not obediently do all My commandments, and in this way ^(C2)break My covenant,¹⁶ I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden ^(C1)terror, consumption, and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to ^(C2)languish also. ^(C3)And you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat what you plant.¹⁷ 'I will set My face against you so that ^(F1)you will be struck down before your enemies; ^(C1)those who hate you will rule over you, ^(C2)and you will flee when no one is pursuing you. ^(VR1)18 'If in spite of all this you still will not listen to Me and be obedient, then I will punish you ^(C1)seven times more for your sins.¹⁹ 'I will ^(C1)break your pride in your power, and I will make your sky like iron giving no rain and blocking all prayers and your ground like bronze hard to plow and yielding no produce. ^(VR1)20 '^(C1)Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.

²¹ 'If then, you ^(C1)act with hostility toward Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you ^(C2)seven times in accordance with your sins.²² '^(C1)I will let loose the wild animals of the field among you, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you so few in number that ^(C2)your roads will lie deserted and desolate. ^(VR1)

²³ '^(C1)And if by these things you are not turned to Me, but act ^(F1)with hostility against Me,²⁴ then I also will ^(C1)act with hostility against you, and I will strike you ^(C2)seven times for your sins.²⁵ 'I will bring a sword on you that will execute ^(C1)vengeance for breaking the covenant; and when you gather together in your cities, I will send ^(C2)pestilence (virulent disease) among you, and you shall be handed over to the enemy. ^(VR1)26 '^(C1)When I break your staff of bread that is, cut off your supply of food, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will ration your bread; and you will ^(C2)eat and not be satisfied. ^(VR1)

²⁷ 'Yet if in spite of this you will not attentively listen to Me but act with hostility against me,²⁸ then ^(C1)I will act with hostility against you in wrath, and I also will punish you seven times for your sins.²⁹ '^(C1)You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. ^(VR1)30 'I ^(C1)will destroy your high places devoted to idolatrous worship, and cut down your ^(C2)incense altars, and heap your dead bodies upon the crushed bodies of your idols, and My soul will detest you with deep and unutterable loathing. ^(VR1)31 'I will lay ^(C1)waste your cities as well and will make your ^(C2)sanctuaries desolate, and I will not ^(C3)smell your sweet and soothing aromas of offerings by fire. ^(VR1)32 'I will make ^(C1)the land desolate, ^(C2)and your enemies who settle in it will be appalled at it.³³ 'I ^(C1)will scatter you among the nations and draw out the sword of your enemies after you; your land will become desolate and your cities will become ruins. ^(VR1)

³⁴ '^(C1)Then the land of Israel will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.³⁵ 'As long as it lies desolate, it will have rest, the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths, while you were living on it. ^(VR1)36 'As for those who are left of you, I will bring ^(C1)despair (lack of courage, weakness) into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a scattered leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as if running from the sword, and will fall even when no one is chasing them.³⁷ '^(C1)They shall stumble over one another as if to escape from a sword when no one is chasing them; and you will have no power to stand before your enemies.³⁸ '^(C1)You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you.³⁹ '^(C1)Those of you who are left will rot away because of their wickedness in the lands of your enemies; also because of the wickedness of their forefathers they will rot away like them.

⁴⁰ '^(C1)If they confess their wickedness and the wickedness of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they have committed against Me—and also in their acting with hostility toward Me—⁴¹ I also was acting with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—^(C1)then if their uncircumcised (sin-filled) hearts are humbled and ^(C2)they accept the punishment for their wickedness, ^(VR1)42 then I will remember ^(C1)My covenant with Jacob, and also ^(C2)My covenant with Isaac, and also ^(C3)My covenant with Abraham, and remember the land. ^(VR1)43 '^(C1)But the land will be abandoned by them and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment for their wickedness and make amends because they rejected My ordinances and their ^(C2)soul rejected My statutes.⁴⁴ 'Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so ^(C1)despise them as ^(C2)to destroy them, ^(C3)breaking My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. ^(VR1)45 'But I will, for their sake, earnestly remember the ^(C1)covenant with their forefathers, whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that ^(C2)I might be their God. I am the LORD.'"

^46 (C1)These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws which the LORD established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses at Mount Sinai.