¹⸤The Lord continued,⸥ “Never make worthless idols or set up a carved statue or a sacred stone for yourselves. Never cut figures in stone to worship them in your country, because I am the Lord your God. ²Observe my days of rest as holy days and respect my holy tent. I am the Lord.

³“This is what I will do if you will live by my laws and carefully obey my commands:

⁴“I will give you rain at the right time. The land will produce its crops, and the trees in the field will produce their fruit. ⁵Threshing^atime will last until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until planting. You will eat all you want and live securely in your land.

⁶“I will bring peace to your land. You will lie down with no one to scare you. I will remove dangerous animals, and there will be no war in your land. ⁷You will chase your enemies, and you will defeat them. ⁸Five of you will chase a hundred of them, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand of them. You will defeat your enemies, ⁹and I will be pleased with you. Your families will be large, and I will keep my promise^bto you. ¹⁰You will clear out old food supplies to make room for new ones.

¹¹“I will put my tent among you, and I will never look at you with disgust. ¹²So I will live among you and be your God, and you will be my people. ¹³I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt so that you are no longer slaves of the Egyptians. I have broken their power over you and made you live as a free people.

God’s Curses for Those Who Break His Laws

¹⁴“If you will not listen to me and obey all these commands, ¹⁵if you reject my laws and look at my rules with disgust, if you reject my promise by disobeying my commands, ¹⁶then this is what I will do to you: I will terrorize you with disease and fever. You will suffer from eye problems and depression. You will plant your crops and get nothing because your enemies will eat them. ¹⁷I will condemn you so that you will go down in defeat in front of your enemies. Those who hate you will be your rulers. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.

¹⁸“If you still will not listen to me, I will discipline you seven times for your sins. ¹⁹I will crush your arrogance. You will have no rain, and your land will be as hard as cement. ²⁰You will work hard for nothing because your land will produce no crops and the trees will produce no fruit.

²¹“If you resist and don’t listen to me, I will increase the punishment for your sins seven times. ²²I will send wild animals among you. They will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, and make you so few that your roads will be deserted.

²³“If this discipline does not help and you still resist, ²⁴then I, too, will resist you. I will punish you seven times for your sins. ²⁵I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise ⸤that you rejected⸥. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy. ²⁶I will destroy your food supply. Ten women will need only one oven to prepare your food. You will eat and go away hungry.

²⁷“If in spite of this you do not listen to me and still resist me, ²⁸I will fiercely resist you. I will discipline you seven times for your sins. ²⁹You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. ³⁰I will destroy your worship sites, cut down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on top of your dead idols. I will look at you with disgust. ³¹I will make your cities deserted and ruin your sacred places. I will no longer accept the soothing aroma from your sacrifices. ³²I will make your land so deserted that your enemies will be shocked as they settle in it. ³³I will scatter you among the nations. War will follow you. Your country will be in ruins. Your cities will be deserted.

³⁴“Then the land will enjoy its time ⸤to honor the Lord⸥ while it lies deserted and you are in your enemies’ land. Then the land will joyfully celebrate its time ⸤to honor the Lord⸥. ³⁵All the days it lies deserted, it will celebrate the time ⸤to honor the Lord⸥ it never celebrated while you lived there. ³⁶I will fill with despair those who are left in the land of their enemies. The sound of a wind-blown leaf will make them run. They will run away and fall, but no one will be chasing them. ³⁷They will stumble over each other, but no one will be after them. They will not be able to stand up to their enemies. ³⁸They will be destroyed among the nations. The land of their enemies will devour them. ³⁹Those who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.

God Will Remember His Promise

⁴⁰“But if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—the treacherous things they did to oppose me—⁴¹I will oppose them and bring them into the lands of their enemies. Then, if they humble their uncircumcised hearts and accept their guilt, ⁴²I will remember my promise to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. I will also remember the land. ⁴³The land, abandoned by them, will enjoy its time to honor the Lord while it lies deserted without them. They must accept their guilt because they rejected my rules and looked at my laws with disgust. ⁴⁴Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or look at them with disgust. I will not reject or cancel my promise to them, because I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵But for their sake, I will remember the promise to their ancestors. I brought them out of Egypt to be their God while nations looked on. I am the Lord.”

⁴⁶These are the laws, rules, and instructions that the Lord gave to the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

27TH CHAPTER

Special Vows

¹The Lord spoke to Moses, ²“Tell the Israelites: If any of you makes a special vow ⸤to give a person⸥ to the Lord, you may give money instead of the person. ³The amount you must give for a man from 20 to 60 years old is 20 ounces of silver. Use the standard weight of the holy place. ⁴If it is a woman, give 12 ounces. ⁵For a boy from 5 to 20 years old, give 8 ounces and for a girl give 4 ounces. ⁶For a boy from one month to five years old, give 2 ounces of silver and for a girl give about one ounce. ⁷For a man 60 years or over, give 6 ounces and for a woman give 4 ounces. ⁸But the person who is too poor to pay the required amount must stand in front of the priest. The priest will determine the amount based on what the person can afford.

⁹“If ⸤the vow⸥ is to give the kind of animal that people offer to the Lord, it will be considered holy. ¹⁰Don’t exchange or substitute animals, a good one for a bad one or a bad one for a good one. If you do exchange one animal for another, then both animals will be holy. ¹¹If it is an unclean animal that cannot be brought to the Lord as an offering, bring it in front of the priest. ¹²The priest will determine what its value is. The value will be whatever the priest decides. ¹³If you want to buy it back, you must pay its full value plus one-fifth more.

¹⁴“If you give your house to the Lord as something holy, the priest will determine what its value is. The value will be whatever the priest decides. ¹⁵If you want to buy it back, you must pay its full value plus one-fifth more.

¹⁶“If a person gives part of a field to the Lord as something holy, its value will be based on the seed planted on it. Ground planted with 2 quarts of barley will be worth 20 ounces of silver. ¹⁷If you give your field in the jubilee year, it will have its full value. ¹⁸But if you give the field after the jubilee year, the priest will estimate its value based on the number of years left until the next jubilee year. ¹⁹If you want to buy it back, you must pay its full value plus one-fifth more. ²⁰But if you don’t buy it back and it is sold to someone else, you cannot buy it back. ²¹When the field is released in the jubilee year, it will be holy like a field claimed by the Lord. It will become the property of the priest. ²²You may give a field you bought (not one that was a part of your family property) to the Lord as something holy. ²³The priest must figure out the field’s value until the jubilee year. You will pay its value on that day as something holy, belonging to the Lord. ²⁴In the jubilee year the field will go back to the person from whom it was bought, to whom it belongs as family property.

²⁵“All values will be set using the standard weight of the holy place.^a

²⁶“A firstborn animal already belongs to the Lord because it was born first. Therefore, it cannot be set apart as holy. Whether it is a bull or a sheep, it belongs to the Lord. ²⁷But if it is an unclean animal, it must be bought back. The payment will be its full value plus one-fifth more. If it is not bought back, it must be sold at the value given it.

²⁸“However, everything dedicated to the Lord for destruction—a person, an animal, or a field that belongs to you—must not be sold or bought back. Everything dedicated in that way is very holy. It belongs to the Lord. ²⁹People dedicated this way cannot be bought back. They must be put to death.

³⁰“One-tenth of what comes from the land, whether grain or fruit, is holy and belongs to the Lord. ³¹If you buy back any part of it, you must add one-fifth more to it. ³²Every tenth head of cattle or sheep that you counted is holy and belongs to the Lord. ³³You must not look to see if it is good or bad or exchange it. But if you do exchange it, both the first animal and its substitute will be holy. They cannot be bought back.”

³⁴These are the commands the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

a 26:5 Threshing is the process of beating stalks to separate them from the grain.
b 26:9 Or “covenant.”
a 27:25 Hebrew adds “There are 20 gerahs to the standard shekel.”