and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.
Parallel translations
- WEB 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.
- KJV And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
- NKJV And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
- NASB Your strength will be consumed uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
- NLT All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel's labor would be wasted as land and trees yield nothing. Without God's blessing, even hard work proves fruitless.
Overview
This continues the curse of barrenness: strength spent in vain because the land withholds its produce. It directly reverses the earlier promise of full harvests. The lesson endures—apart from God's blessing all human effort is empty (Psalm 127:1)—and points to our need for the fruitfulness that comes only through abiding in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Deut 11:17or the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you. He will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain, nor will the land yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is giving you.
- Ps 127:1A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.
- Isa 49:4But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength in futility and vanity; yet My vindication is with the LORD, and My reward is with My God.”
- Lev 26:4I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.
- Hab 2:13Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?
- Isa 17:11though on the day you plant you make them grow, and on that morning you help your seed sprout—yet the harvest will vanish on the day of disease and incurable pain.
- Deut 28:38–40You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.
- Job 31:40then let briers grow instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” Thus conclude the words of Job.
- Hag 1:9–11You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- Hag 2:16from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.
- Deut 28:18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.
- Gal 4:11I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain.
- 1 Cor 3:6I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
- Ps 107:34and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.
- Deut 28:42Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.