Leviticus 26:1
Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.
No idols or graven images are to be made, and no standing image or image of stone is to be reared up or set up in the land to bow down to in worship, for the Lord alone is Israel's God. The command was spoken by Moses as the opening condition and the terms on which blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience depend. Keeping it goes together with keeping God's Sabbaths and reverencing His sanctuary and walking in His statutes and keeping and doing His commandments. Obedience so defined brings rain in due season and increase and fruitfulness of land and trees, and above all God's tabernacle set among His people, His soul not abhorring them, and His walking among them to be their God while they are His people.
All God's especial promises and blessings to a people enlightened and loved by Him are always upon condition of obedience, so profession must be accompanied by good works, God will in no wise excuse sin, and past faithfulness and special promises do not make the people safe in sin or exempt them from its consequences. Breaking the covenant by not hearkening and not doing the commandments and despising the statutes and abhorring the judgments to break His covenant brings terror and consumption and burning ague and disease and sorrow of heart and vain sowing and defeat before enemies and rule by haters and flight when none pursues. The chapter is given as an admonition from Israel's history warning that obedience brings blessing while disobedience brings punishment, and Israel's departure from God and iniquity brought the promised curse even while the people claimed the blessings promised to the obedient and faithful, and the Jews in the days of John the Baptist were experiencing that fulfillment, so that without fruit they would be hewn down and cast into the fire as John enforced the verse upon them.