Leviticus 26:31 (LSB)

Passage

And I will give your cities over as a waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas.

Nearby Context

Leviticus 26:29 Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.

Leviticus 26:30 I then will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and give your corpses to lie on the corpses of your idols, for My soul shall loathe you.

Leviticus 26:31 And I will give your cities over as a waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas.

Leviticus 26:32 And I will make the land desolate, so that your enemies who inhabit it will themselves feel desolate because of it.

Leviticus 26:33 You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "give", "cities", "over", "waste", "make", "sanctuaries", "desolate", and "smell". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "give" and "cities", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 30's "I then will destroy your high places..." into verse 32's "And I will make the land desolate...", so "give" and "cities" belong inside that flow. In Leviticus context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "give" and "cities" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.