18"If you still will not listen to me, I will discipline you seven times for your sins.
19I will crush your arrogance. You will have no rain, and your land will be as hard as cement.
20You will work hard for nothing because your land will produce no crops and the trees will produce no fruit.
21"If you resist and don't listen to me, I will increase the punishment for your sins seven times. 22I will send wild animals among you. They will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, and make you so few that your roads will be deserted.
23"If this discipline does not help and you still resist, 24then I, too, will resist you. I will punish you seven times for your sins. 25I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise [that you rejected]. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy. 26I will destroy your food supply. Ten women will need only one oven to prepare your food. You will eat and go away hungry.
27"If in spite of this you do not listen to me and still resist me, 28I will fiercely resist you. I will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. 30I will destroy your worship sites, cut down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on top of your dead idols. I will look at you with disgust. 31I will make your cities deserted and ruin your sacred places. I will no longer accept the soothing aroma from your sacrifices. 32I will make your land so deserted that your enemies will be shocked as they settle in it. 33I will scatter you among the nations. War will follow you. Your country will be in ruins. Your cities will be deserted.
34"Then the land will enjoy its time [to honor the LORD] while it lies deserted and you are in your enemies' land. Then the land will joyfully celebrate its time [to honor the LORD]. 35All the days it lies deserted, it will celebrate the time [to honor the LORD] it never celebrated while you lived there. 36I will fill with despair those who are left in the land of their enemies. The sound of a windblown leaf will make them run. They will run away and fall, but no one will be chasing them. 37They will stumble over each other, but no one will be after them. They will not be able to stand up to their enemies. 38They will be destroyed among the nations. The land of their enemies will devour them. 39Those who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
40"But if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors-the treacherous things they did to oppose me- 41I will oppose them and bring them into the lands of their enemies. Then, if they humble their uncircumcised hearts and accept their guilt, 42I will remember my promise to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. I will also remember the land. 43The land, abandoned by them, will enjoy its time to honor the LORD while it lies deserted without them. They must accept their guilt because they rejected my rules and looked at my laws with disgust. 44Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or look at them with disgust. I will not reject or cancel my promise to them, because I am the LORD their God. 45But for their sake, I will remember the promise to their ancestors. I brought them out of Egypt to be their God while nations looked on. I am the LORD."
46These are the laws, rules, and instructions that the LORD gave to the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.
