Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 208
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IMMERSE
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BEGINNINGS
26:19-39
times over for your sins. I will break your proud spirit by making the skies
as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze. All your work will
be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear
no fruit.
“If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I
will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins. I will send wild
animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your
numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.
“And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward
me, then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you
with calamity seven times over for your sins. I will send armies against you
to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to
your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you
will be handed over to your enemies. I will destroy your food supply, so
that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families.
They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat,
you will not be satisfied.
“If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile
toward me, then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish
you seven times over for your sins. Then you will eat the flesh of your own
sons and daughters. I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down
your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of
your lifeless idols, and I will despise you. I will make your cities desolate
and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your
offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me. Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled
at what they see. I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my
sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie
in ruins. Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it
lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the
land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed. As long as the land
lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh
year while you lived in it.
“And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land
of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven
by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a
sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you. Though no one
is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from
a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies. You
will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your
enemies. Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies’ lands
because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
