Bible Strands
Leviticus 26:31
I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses Israel within the covenant lawsuit of Leviticus 26, pronouncing specific judgments following their repeated disobedience. This declaration occurs in the sequential list of covenant curses that replace promised blessings.
The words — The Hebrew חָרְבָּה (char.Bah) denotes a desolate ruin, while מִקְדְּשֵׁיכֶם (mik.de.shei./Khem) specifies the sacred spaces belonging to the people. These terms anchor the physical and cultic dimensions of the coming devastation.
The thread — The motif of ruined cities and abandoned sanctuaries reappears in Nehemiah 2:3 and 2 Kings 25:4 during the exile, while the phrase "pleasing aroma" echoes Genesis 8:21 where God refuses to curse the ground again after a sacrifice. The text links covenant failure to the loss of both land and accepted worship.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that covenant blessings are conditional and that divine acceptance of worship can be withdrawn when the covenant is broken. It requires the reader to treat obedience not as optional ritual but as the necessary foundation for communion with God.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 2:3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
- Genesis 8:21 When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.
- 2 Kings 25:4 Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,
- Psalms 74:3 Turn Your steps to the everlasting ruins, to everything in the sanctuary the enemy has destroyed.
- Isaiah 1:11 “What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
- Jeremiah 4:7 A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.
- Lamentations 1:10 The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly.
- Lamentations 2:7 The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.
- Ezekiel 9:6 Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple.
- Amos 5:21 “I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.