Single lesson
Blessings, Consequences and Repentance
Leviticus 26:1–46
Leviticus 26 sets out covenant teaching for Israel. It contrasts blessing for obedience, increasing consequences for refusing Yahweh, and a path of confession and remembered covenant when people are humbled.
Before you teach
This passage is presented as statutes, ordinances, and laws Yahweh made with the children of Israel at Mount Sinai by Moses. It is not a narrated event here, but covenant exhortation explaining what obedience, covenant breaking, punishment, confession, and remembered covenant mean in this setting.
Explain the central teaching of Blessings, Consequences and Repentance, using two details from the reading. This passage teaches that Yahweh sets obedience and covenant faithfulness alongside real consequences for rejection, while still speaking of confession, humility, and his remembered covenant.
Welcome: Blessings, Consequences and Repentance
5 minIntroduce “Blessings, Consequences and Repentance” and locate Leviticus 26:1–46. This passage teaches that Yahweh sets obedience and covenant faithfulness alongside real consequences for rejection, while still speaking of confession, humility, and his remembered covenant. Invite each learner to name a detail or question they will listen for.
Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:46
Read and explain the passage
12 minThe chapter begins with direct covenant commands: no idols, carved images, pillars, or figured stones for bowing down. Israel is also told to keep Yahweh’s Sabbaths and reverence his sanctuary. These opening lines show that worship, time, and holy space matter in this covenant teaching.
If the people will not listen, the consequences grow stronger in repeated stages. The passage names terror, sickness, failed crops, defeat, drought, plagues, wild animals, sword, pestilence, famine, ruined cities, scattered exile, and fearful weakness. The repeated phrase “if you won’t listen” shows persistent refusal, not a single slip.
Even in desolation, the land is said to enjoy its Sabbaths. Yet the passage does not end with destruction alone. If the people confess their iniquity, acknowledge that they walked contrary to Yahweh, and are humbled, Yahweh says he will remember his covenant with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, and not break it utterly.
Read the selected verses together, pausing at “Blessings, Consequences and Repentance”. Use the source reading below and check the explanation against the words of the passage.
Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:2, Leviticus 26:14, Leviticus 26:16, Leviticus 26:17, Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:19, Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:22, Leviticus 26:25, Leviticus 26:26, Leviticus 26:33, Leviticus 26:36, Leviticus 26:34, Leviticus 26:35, Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:42, Leviticus 26:44, Leviticus 26:45, Leviticus 26:46
Discuss the details and their meaning
8 minUse the three questions below. Begin with “Which two commands open this covenant teaching, and what do they show is important to Yahweh?” and allow time to find the supporting verses. This passage teaches that Yahweh sets obedience and covenant faithfulness alongside real consequences for rejection, while still speaking of confession, humility, and his remembered covenant. Ask learners to explain which details support their answer and to identify a question they would like to explore further.
Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:2, Leviticus 26:3, Leviticus 26:4, Leviticus 26:5, Leviticus 26:6, Leviticus 26:11, Leviticus 26:12, Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:42
Make and respond: Instruction and context chart
12 minWork on “Blessings, Consequences and Repentance: Instruction and context chart”. Follow the materials and steps below, using “Blessings, Consequences and Repentance” as reading headings. Each learner should include at least two accurate details and their verse references. Share one observation from the finished sheet and explain how it connects with the central teaching.
Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:46
Closing: return to Blessings, Consequences and Repentance
3 minRevisit Leviticus 26:1–46. Invite a learner to summarise what the group has learned about Blessings, Consequences and Repentance and another to support the summary with a verse. Give learners a moment to complete their response sheet. They can share a question or, if appropriate for the group, join the optional prayer.
Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:46
Questions to explore
Which two commands open this covenant teaching, and what do they show is important to Yahweh?
Look at the commands about idols, Sabbaths, and the sanctuary, and answer from those words directly.
Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:2
What blessings are linked to walking in Yahweh’s statutes in this passage?
List the concrete things named, such as rain, harvest, peace, safety, victory, and Yahweh dwelling among his people.
Leviticus 26:3, Leviticus 26:4, Leviticus 26:5, Leviticus 26:6, Leviticus 26:11, Leviticus 26:12
According to the end of the chapter, what response is named before Yahweh says he will remember the covenant?
Notice the words confess, walked contrary, humbled heart, and accept the punishment of iniquity.
Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:42
Make, think or respond
Blessings, Consequences and Repentance: Instruction and context chart
What you’ll need
- plain paper or card
- pencils or pens
- a Bible or the source reading on this page
Try it together
- Fold a sheet into three panels or draw three columns. Label them “Who is addressed?”, “What is required?”, “What reason or purpose is given?”.
- Read Leviticus 26:1–46. Use “Blessings, Consequences and Repentance” as your reading headings and add a short quotation or detail with its verse reference to each panel.
- Compare your notes with a partner. Check that every quotation is accurate and every conclusion has support in the passage.
- Under the chart, distinguish instructions in their original setting from an application you could discuss today.
The finished sheet keeps the details of Blessings, Consequences and Repentance connected to their Bible references and gives the group a way to explain what they noticed.
Adapt for your group
- For learners who need more support, prepare the reading headings “Blessings, Consequences and Repentance” and let them match short quotations to the correct heading.
- For confident readers, compare two sections of Leviticus 26:1–46. Ask for a written explanation with two supporting references and one question that the text leaves open.
An optional closing prayer
“God, help us listen carefully as we read Leviticus 26:1–46. Help us understand what we have read, ask thoughtful questions and respond with care for others. Amen.”
Read the Bible passage World English Bible Classic
Leviticus 26
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 Yahweh your God.
2 “ ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3 “ ‘If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them,
4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5 Your 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.
7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8 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.
9 “ ‘I will have respect for you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
10 You shall eat old supplies long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new.
11 I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you.
12 I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.
13 I am Yahweh 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,
15 and 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,
16 I 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.
17 I 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.
19 I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze.
20 Your 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.
22 I 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,
24 then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.
25 I 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.
26 When 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,
28 then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins.
29 You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
30 I 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.
31 I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.
32 I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it.
33 I 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.
34 Then 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.
35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.
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.
37 They 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.
38 You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.
39 Those 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,
41 I 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,
42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
43 The 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.
44 Yet 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 Yahweh their God.
45 But 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 Yahweh.’ ”
46 These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
World English Bible Classic. Public domain.