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Leviticus 26

God binds Israel’s life in the land to covenant obedience, warns of devastating judgment, and pledges to remember his covenant.

YHWH speaks to Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai, setting out the consequences of keeping or breaking his covenant. He promises food, peace, and his presence if the people obey his commands. Repeated refusal to listen brings escalating judgments, ending in ruined cities and exile while the land receives its missed Sabbath rests. The closing words address confession and humbled hearts, and declare that God will remember his covenant even when Israel is in enemy lands.

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1“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.
2“‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.
3“‘If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them,
5Your threshing shall continue until the vintage, and the vintage shall continue until the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6“‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
8Five 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.
9“‘I will have respect for you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
10You shall eat old supplies long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new.
11I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you.
12I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.
13I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.
14“‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments,
15and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,
16I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
17I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.
19I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze.
20Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21“‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.
22I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
23“‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me,
24then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.
25I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27“‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me,
28then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins.
29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
31I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.
32I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it.
33I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.
36“‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues.
37They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies.
38You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.
39Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
40“‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me,
41I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity,
42then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
43The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.
44Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.
45But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.’”
46These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
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Key verses
Leviticus 26:8Victory against overwhelming numbers belongs to the promised covenant blessings, contrasting with the helpless flight described later.
Leviticus 26:12God’s promise to walk among Israel places his presence at the heart of the blessings.
Leviticus 26:40Confession marks a turn in the chapter, as the warnings of exile give way to humbled hearts and covenant remembrance.
Where this chapter reaches

Deuteronomy shares the pattern of covenant blessings and curses, while Jeremiah and Ezekiel share warnings of devastated land and exile alongside promises that God will remain Israel’s God. 2 Corinthians draws on the promise of God dwelling among his people when describing the church as God’s temple.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What stands out to you about the contrast between God walking among Israel and walking against them?

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How do the closing promises of covenant remembrance shape your reading of the chapter’s severe warnings?

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Questions people ask about Leviticus 26

Does Leviticus 26 promise wealth and health to everyone who obeys God?

The promises address Israel as a covenant people, with blessings tied to their land, harvests, and protection from enemies. The chapter identifies this covenant setting at Mount Sinai. It does not establish a rule that every obedient individual will be wealthy or healthy, or that personal suffering proves disobedience.

What does it mean that the land will enjoy its Sabbaths?

Verses 34–35 explain that the land will rest while Israel is exiled and its cities lie ruined. This desolation supplies the rest the land did not receive while the people lived there. The passage connects exile with neglected Sabbath rest and with Israel’s wider rejection of God’s commands.

Does God break his covenant with Israel in Leviticus 26?

Israel’s disobedience is described as breaking the covenant, and God threatens severe covenant judgments. Yet verse 44 says he will neither destroy the people altogether nor break his covenant with them. The closing section holds confession and humbled hearts alongside God’s commitment to remember his covenant with their ancestors.

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Leviticus · 27 chapters

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).