As the people prepare to go into the land of Caanan, God through Moses, renews His covenant with His people. There are multiple blessings if they obey and multiple curses if they don't. Look again at Leviticus 26:14-42 from yesterday's reading. Notice the progression of the punishment for their disobedience. Each stage of punishment gets worse than the one before ranging from diseases to hunger so intense that the people resort to eating their children. Finally, their punishment reaches a crescendo when the people no longer have peace. They live with an anxious mind and are in constant suspense, fearful of even a "windblown leaf". (Lev. 26:36)

And then Moses reminds the people of all that God has done for them. He reminds them that God sets before them "life and prosperity, death and destruction". (Deut. 30:15)

All the promises made to Israel are also promises made to those who believe in Jesus.

Notice all the times the word "if" is used.  The use of the word "if" means the people are given a choice.

One of the curses of oppression was confusion of mind.  This is so prevalent in the religious establishment and in our churches today.  But there shouldn't be.  Truth never changes.  People's perception of the truth is dependent on whether or not they are listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The curses listed in today's reading are literal curses but if we really think about it, they are spiritual as well.
"The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder..." Reminiscent of the dust bowl of the 1930s in the US?  There was a famine in the land.  Is there a spiritual famine today - a famine of hearing the Word - of hearing the truth?

As we read about the curses of captivity in Deut 28, it seems as if things can't get much worse than this.  It is a description of a totally godless people.

The people are reminded to be cautious in turning to the right or to the left following other gods and serving them. Good advice for all of us today as well. There will always be something on each side for us to follow after instead of keeping our focus on Him.

In Deut 27 Moses tells the people to"write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up."  What great advice for the people then.  Are the commands of God being taught clearly to us today?

Deut 27:15
Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol - a thing detestable to the Lord, the work of the craftsman's hands - and sets it up in secret."
Makes one think about burying the statue of St. Joseph in the yard of a house for sale, and then praying for St. Joseph to intervene in the sale of the house.  Don't think that is pleasing to God for a number of reasons.

Have you ever really thought about the verse, “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.”?

God never asks us to do anything that is beyond our capabilities. He does set a very high standard though doesn’t He? Sometimes we may think it is insurmountable but He promises us that it isn’t. Why?
“…the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”

How do we get the word in our mouth and in our heart? Would that be possible if we only spend a few minutes each week listening to a sermon? Or if we only spend a few minutes each week in prayer? Or if we only spend a few minutes each week in any kind of daily devotional? Or if we only spend a few minutes each week reading His Word?

I don’t think so!

In Lev 19:2 we are told to "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy." 
Now this seems to be an impossible task.  What human (other than Jesus) could be holy as God is holy?  That's a rather tall order, wouldn't you say?   Well, of course it is if we try to do it on our own.  But in today's reading, we have this great promise in Lev 22.
"I am the Lord who makes you holy..."
Wow!  HE is the one to make us holy!

God again lays out the punishments for disobedience.  In Lev 26:27-35 some very specific consequences are spelled out.  All these consequences happened when Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem and the people were taken into Babylonian captivity.  The people were warned way ahead of time.  One of the things listed in this passage is that God collected on his seventy years of Sabbaths.

And yet another offer is presented from the Father to His children if they follow His decrees and commands. Just read again all the blessings of obedience listed in Lev 26:3-13. It sounds almost like the Millennial Kingdom or the Garden of Eden. If they had obeyed, they would have entered the land under millennial conditions. This time He promises them all this and once again, “I will walk among you.”
2 Cor 6:16-18
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.""Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

As in yesterday's reading, we are reminded again of avoiding anything indecent. That means staying away from those who might pull us away from God. And again, we are reminded that we are to be different and separate from the world around us. This is not to say that we must remove ourselves from the world, but we are to show ourselves to the world to be different!

Even now He promises us an abundant life with Him if we only listen and obey!

Under the punishments for disobedience, in each stage of punishment, God gives them a chance to repent. Then when they disobey, each stage of the punishment gets worse than the one before. Look at the progression:
1. Sudden terror, diseases, and seeds don't grow
2. Punishment seven times over - soil will not yield
3. Multiple afflictions seven times over, wild animals devour children and cattle
4. Suffer the effects of multiple afflictions - plague, sent into enemies' hands, food cut off
5. Punishment seven times over - they will eat their children, cities are in ruin, land is laid waste, people are scattered among the nations
6. Anything left will live in constant fear even though no one is pursuing them
7. They will perish among the nations

Look at the progression from the first to the seventh. But God....

Lev 26:46
These are the decrees, laws, and the regulations that the Lord established on Mount Sinai...
All these were given to Moses during the trips up the mountain.  It all began with only the "Big 10".  God added more because of their disobedience.  Many lessons for us to learn from this!

In all the laws God gave to Moses for the people, He made provisions of benevolence toward others.  In the custom of gleaning, some remnants are left over for the alien, fatherless, and the widow, but the remnants were not picked and handed to them, they had to go get them for themselves.

It was through this custom that Boaz was introduced to Ruth…and we know where that led. Ruth 4:13
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
Ruth 4:17b
And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. (ancestor of Jesus)

Again God warns the Israelites about the nations teaching them to follow their detestable ways, the worst of which is the worship of other "gods", the first of the Ten Commandments.

Deut 23:14
For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

Can we even begin to wrap our minds around this one? The Lord moves about in our "camp" to protect us and deliver our enemies to us, spiritually speaking. But in order for the Lord to do this for us, our "camp" must be holy, containing nothing indecent. When we do anything indecent, He will turn away. Makes a person want to evaluate everything; what we say, what we do, who we hang out with, what we watch on TV, what kinds of movies we watch, what kind of books we read, etc.... Would anything we see, say, or do be considered indecent in the Lord's eyes?

Many of the dietary and health regulations listed in Deuteronomy and Leviticus are just plain common sense. It seems that many of the animals, fish, and birds listed as unclean are those who either eat meat or are scavengers.

Lev 17:11
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.
Couldn’t help but think of Jesus on this one. It is through His shed blood that we have atonement for our sins.

Col 1:19-20
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

While we may not want to commit to memory the qualifications for clean and unclean animals, it is good to have it there for us to refer back to, especially when telling the story of Noah's ark.  Not all the animals went into the ark in pairs.
Gen 7:2
You shall take with you every clean animal by sevens, the male and female. And take two of the animals that are not clean, the male and female. 

Rather a strange command concerning cooking a young goat in its mother's milk.  Mixtures of milk and meat are prohibited according to Jewish law.
According to the Talmud, these almost identical references are the basis for three distinct dietary laws:

• the prohibition against cooking a mixture of milk and meat
• the prohibition against eating a cooked mixture of milk and meat
• the prohibition against deriving any benefit from a cooked mixture of milk and meat.

And there is also this explanation.
"It was a custom with the ancient heathens, when they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid, and boil it in the dam's milk; and then in a magical way, to go about and sprinkle all their trees, and fields, and gardens, and orchards with it, thinking by these means, that they should make them fruitful, and bring forth more abundantly in the following year. Wherefore, God forbad his people, at the time of their in-gathering, to use any such superstitious or idolatrous rite.
Dr. Cudworth, from a MS. comment of a Karaïte Jew.

As we struggle through the reading of the laws and regulations, imagine what a struggle it was for the people to keep the law.
Rom 7:6-7a
But now we having been set free from the Law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Let it not be said! But I did not know sin except through the law. 

In all the rituals concerning people with infectious diseases, leprosy, boils, burns, etc. there is no mention of a cure. They were simply separated from the general population. Jesus came with cures, not just for the physical but for the spiritual as well.

“You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean…”
If only we would keep ourselves separate from things that contaminate us.

2 Cor 7:1
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.Praise God, He sees us as "clean" through the blood of Jesus!

In today's reading, there is a provision for the Israelite men to marry a foreign woman. At first this sounds like a contradiction. Earlier God had warned them against marrying the inhabitants of the land saying that the foreigners would lure them away from Him. This provision is for marrying a captive woman. This woman would be considered "spoils of war"." The captive woman has no ties, no family, or anyone to support her in drawing the man away from God.

At the heart of the marriage relationship is the idea of faithfulness to the vows of commitment. Faithfulness is important both in marriage and in the people's relationship with God. Their unfaithfulness to God is considered spiritual adultery."
-quote from the Chronological Bible comments

Spiritual adultery happens when believers in Jesus break their vows of commitment and follow after other gods.

In Lev. 18 homosexual practices are forbidden.  This was confirmed by Paul in his letter to the Romans.
Rom 1:27
Likewise, their men have given up natural sexual relations with women and burn with lust for each other. Men commit indecent acts with men, so they experience among themselves the punishment they deserve for their perversion. 

Deut 22:5 forbids women to wear men's clothing and men to wear women's clothing.  Many people use this verse to say that women shouldn't wear pants. But what kind of clothing did men wear at the time this was written?  They didn't wear pants like men do today.

According to the law, the penalty for adultery is the death of both parties involved.
(Deut 22:22, Lev 20:10)

There is a New Testament connection.  When the teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, notice they didn’t bring in the man with her. (John 8:3-11) Could it be that some of those men who were standing around the woman were guilty themselves? Is that what Jesus wrote on the ground…their names or their sins?

All the woman's accusers left, one by one. Jesus told the woman that He didn't condemn her. But He also declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

The sin is condemned, but not the repentant sinner. Praise God for that!

A great welfare system that God put in place – be openhanded toward your brothers. This command from the Lord has some stipulations. It is based on three important words, brother, lend, and need. Open-handedness should be to the brothers (believers) first. This was to be a loan with the expectation of being paid back. And it was to be based on need, not on wants. God said, “There will always be poor in the land.”

John also recorded these same words from Jesus.
John 12:8
You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."

Jesus was probably talking here about the poor in worldly possessions. A woman had just poured out some costly perfume on Jesus (a year's wage to be exact). However, there are also spiritually poor among us. What is our responsibility to them?

We should feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty, but we should also tell them about the "Bread of Life" and the "Living Water".
We should house the homeless, but we should also tell them that in "our Father's house are many mansions".
We should clothe the naked, but we should also tell them about the "garments of righteousness".
God called us to do both, to take care of physical needs but to also take care of spiritual needs. Tall order!