Numbers 15:17–36

Offering the First Bread Dough to the Lord

¹⁷The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁸“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land where I’m taking you ¹⁹and eat any of the food from the land, give some of it as a contribution to the Lord. ²⁰Shape one part of your dough into a ring the same way you do with the contribution you make from the threshing floor.^a21For generations to come, you must give one part of your dough as a contribution to the Lord. 

What Is to Be Done about Unintentional and Intentional Wrongdoings

²²“Suppose you unintentionally do something wrong by not obeying all these commands the Lord gave Moses. ²³(Everything the Lord commanded you through Moses holds as true for generations to come as it did the day the Lord gave the commands.) ²⁴If it was unintentional and no one else knows about it, the whole community must sacrifice a young bull as a burnt offering, a soothing aroma to the Lord, along with the proper grain and wine offerings, and a male goat as an offering for sin. ²⁵The priest will make peace with the Lord for the whole community of Israel. Then they will be forgiven because the wrongdoing was unintentional and they brought these two offerings to the Lord for their sin: an offering by fire and an offering for sin. ²⁶So the whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including foreigners who are living among them, since all the people were involved in the unintentional wrongdoing. 

²⁷“If one person unintentionally does something wrong, a one-year-old female goat must be sacrificed as an offering for sin. ²⁸The priest will offer the sacrifice to make peace with the Lord for that person, and that person will be forgiven. ²⁹You must give the same instructions to everyone who does something wrong unintentionally, whether they are native-born Israelites or not. 

³⁰“But any native-born Israelite or foreigner who deliberately does something wrong insults the Lord and must be excluded from the people. ³¹That person has despised the Lord’s word and broken the Lord’s command. He must be excluded completely. He remains guilty.” 

A Man Breaks the Rules for the Day of Rest

³²While the Israelites were in the desert, they found a man gathering wood on the day of rest—a holy day. ³³Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole community. ³⁴They kept him in custody until they decided what to do with him. 

³⁵Then the Lord said to Moses, “This man must be put to death. The whole community must take him outside the camp and stone him.” ³⁶So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.