I will do this to you: the pronoun this looks forward to what is said in the remainder of this verse. Another way to translate this is to say “I will punish you in the following ways:…” or “Your punishment will be as follows:….”

Appoint over you sudden terror: the use of the word appoint is strange in this context, because it is usually people who are appointed. It is better translated “send” or “cause to happen.” The words sudden terror translate a single Hebrew word meaning “ruin” or “dismay.” In this context it may be translated “catastrophe” or “disaster.” In some languages this whole phrase may be rendered “I will ruin you” or “I will cause you to be devastated.”

Consumption and fever: the words used here are found only in this verse and in similar lists of catastrophes (as in Deut 28.22). The Septuagint has “scurvy and jaundice,” but this is not followed by any modern English version. The exact nature of these ills is uncertain, but they are clearly terrible diseases. While fever (or perhaps “high fever”) is probably the best rendering of the second term, the first may be translated “disease(s) that cause the body to waste away” or “incurable diseases.” Both the Modern Language Bible and Living Bible have “tuberculosis.”

That waste the eyes: some versions take this to mean “cause to be blind” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). But others see it as simply “making the eyes weak.” Compare New English Bible “that dim the sight.”

Cause life to pine away: literally “draining the soul.” This has been interpreted in a variety of ways, from “causing shortness of breath” (see Bible de la Pléiade), to “cause the appetite to fail” (New English Bible), to “depressing your spirits” (An American Translation). Probably the best way to understand it is in the sense of “eating away at your life,” or “causing you to waste away,” or “… get more and more ill.”

Sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it: the counterpart of this is in verses 4-5 and 10. The final pronoun, it, refers not to the grain that is sown, but to the crops harvested from that grain. This may be translated “You will sow your seed for nothing, because your enemies will eat what is produced” or “There will be no point in sowing, since your enemies will gather the harvest (and eat it).”

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .