Penalties for Disobedience

¹⁴ “But if you will not obey me and do not observe all these commandments,^{(A) 15} if you spurn my statutes and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments and you break my covenant, ¹⁶ I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.^{(B) 17} I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you.^{(C) 18} And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper.^{(D) 20} Your strength shall be spent to no purpose: your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.^(E)

²¹ “If you continue hostile to me and will not obey me, I will continue to plague you sevenfold for your sins. ²² I will let loose wild animals against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock; they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted.^(F)

²³ “If in spite of these punishments you have not turned back to me but continue hostile to me,^{(G) 24} then I, too, will continue hostile to you: I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.^{(H) 25} I will bring the sword against you, executing vengeance for the covenant, and if you withdraw into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into enemy hands.^{(I) 26} When I cut off your supply of bread,^[a] ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven, and they shall dole out your bread by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.^(J)

²⁷ “But if, despite this, you disobey me and continue hostile to me, ²⁸ I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹ You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.^{(K) 30} I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you.^{(L) 31} I will lay your cities waste, will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors.^{(M) 32} I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to settle in it shall be appalled at it.^{(N) 33} And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword against you; your land shall be a desolation and your cities a waste.^(O)

³⁴ “Then the land shall enjoy^[b] its Sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy^[c] its Sabbath years.^{(P) 35} As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were living on it. ³⁶ And as for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one pursues.^{(Q) 37} They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues, and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies.^{(R) 38} You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you.^{(S) 39} And those of you who survive shall languish in the land of your enemies because of their iniquities; they shall also languish because of the iniquities of their ancestors.^(T)

⁴⁰ “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors—their treachery against me and also their continued hostility to me,^{(U) 41} so that I in turn was hostile to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if, then, their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,^{(V) 42} then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.^{(W) 43} For the land shall be deserted by them and enjoy^[d] its Sabbath years by lying desolate without them, while they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they dared to spurn my ordinances, and they abhorred my statutes.^(X)

²⁶ yet they did not listen to me or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.^(A)