Leviticus 24–25

CHAPTER 24

The Lamps and the Bread Before Yahweh

¹Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

²“Command the sons of Israel that they bring to you ^aclear oil from beaten olives for the ¹light, to make a lamp ²burn continually.

³“Outside the veil of testimony in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh continually; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations.

⁴“He shall keep the lamps in order on the ^apure gold lampstand before Yahweh continually.

⁵“^aThen you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake.

⁶“And you shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the ^apure gold table before Yahweh.

⁷“And you shall put pure frankincense on each row that it may be ^aa memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to Yahweh.

⁸“^aEvery sabbath day he shall set it in order before Yahweh ^bcontinually; it is an everlasting covenant ¹for the sons of Israel.

⁹“^aAnd it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings to Yahweh by fire, his portion forever.”

¹⁰Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp.

¹¹And the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the ^aName and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

¹²And they put him in ¹custody ²so that ^athe command of Yahweh might be made clear to them.

¹³Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

¹⁴“Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him ^alay their hands on his head; then ^blet all the congregation stone him.

¹⁵“And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘^aIf anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin.

¹⁶‘Moreover, the one who ^ablasphemes the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

An Eye for an Eye

¹⁷‘^aIf a man strikes down the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸‘^aAnd the one who strikes down the life of an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life.

¹⁹‘If a man ¹injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him:

^20afracture for fracture, ^beye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has ¹injured a man, so it shall be ²inflicted on him.

²¹‘Thus the one who strikes down an animal shall make restitution for it, but ^athe one who strikes down a man shall be put to death.

²²‘There shall be ^aone standard of judgment for you; it shall be for the sojourner as well as the native, for I am Yahweh your God.’”

²³Then Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought the one who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. Thus the sons of Israel did, just as Yahweh had commanded Moses.

CHAPTER 25

The Sabbatical Year

¹Yahweh then spoke to Moses ¹at Mount Sinai, saying,

²“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am giving to you, then the land shall have a sabbath to Yahweh.

³‘^aSix years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its produce,

⁴but during ^athe seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to Yahweh; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

⁵‘¹What grows of its own accord from your harvest you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year.

⁶‘^aAnd the sabbath produce of the land shall be for food; for you and your male and female slaves and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who sojourn with you.

⁷‘Even your cattle and the beasts that are in your land shall have all its produce to eat.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸‘You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years.

⁹‘You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on ^athe tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land.

¹⁰‘You shall thus set apart as holy the fiftieth year and ^aproclaim ¹a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, ²and ^beach of you shall return to his own possession of land, ³and each of you shall return to his family.

¹¹‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow; you shall not reap what grows of its own accord; you shall not gather in from its untrimmed vines.

¹²‘For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce out of the field.

¹³‘^aOn this year of jubilee, each of you shall return to his own possession of land.

¹⁴‘If you make a sale, moreover, to your companion or buy from your friend’s hand, ^ayou shall not mistreat one another.

¹⁵‘Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your ¹companion; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of produce.

¹⁶‘^aIn proportion to the ¹extent of the years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of the years you shall diminish its price, for it is the number of crops it produces that he is selling to you.

¹⁷‘So ^ayou shall not mistreat one another, but you shall ¹fear your God; for I am Yahweh your God.

¹⁸‘You shall thus observe My statutes and keep My judgments, so as to do them, that ^ayou may live securely on the land.

¹⁹‘Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it.

²⁰‘But if you say, “^aWhat are we going to eat on the seventh year ¹if we do not sow or gather in our produce?”

²¹then ^aI will command My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the produce for three years.

²²‘So you shall sow the eighth year and eat ^aold things from that produce, eating the old until the ninth year when its produce comes in.

The Redemption of Land

²³‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for ^athe land is Mine; for ^byou are but sojourners and foreign residents with Me.

²⁴‘Thus for every ¹piece of land of your possession, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.

²⁵‘^aIf a brother of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his possession of land, then his nearest kinsman redeemer is to come and redeem what his brother has sold.

²⁶‘Or in case a man has no kinsman redeemer, but ¹recovers his means and finds sufficient payment for its redemption,

^27athen he shall calculate the years since its sale and return the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his possession of land.

²⁸‘But if ¹he has not found sufficient means to return it to himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall ²revert, that ^ahe may return to his possession of land.

²⁹‘Likewise, if a man sells a house for habitation in a walled city, then his redemption right remains valid until a full year from its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year.

³⁰‘But if it is not redeemed for him within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently to its purchaser throughout his generations; it does not ¹revert in the jubilee.

³¹‘The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall, shall be considered ¹as open fields; they have redemption rights and ²revert in the jubilee.

³²‘As for ^acities of the Levites, the Levites have a permanent right of redemption for the houses of the cities which are their possession.

³³‘What, therefore, ¹belongs to the Levites may be redeemed, and a house sale ²in the city of ³their possession ⁴reverts in the jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the sons of Israel.

³⁴‘^aBut pasture fields of their cities shall not be sold, for that is their perpetual possession.

Redemption Rights for Poor Brothers

³⁵‘^aNow if a brother of yours becomes poor and his ¹means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a sojourner or a foreign resident, that he may live with you.

³⁶‘^aDo not take ¹usurious interest from him, but fear your God, that your brother may live with you.

³⁷‘You shall not give him your silver at interest nor your food for gain.

³⁸‘^aI am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and ^bto be your God.

³⁹‘^aIf a brother of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service.

⁴⁰‘He shall be with you as a hired man, as ^aif he were a foreign resident; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee.

⁴¹‘He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall return to his family, that he may return to the possession of the land of his fathers.

⁴²‘For they are My slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold in a slave sale.

⁴³‘^aYou shall not have dominion over him with brutality, but you shall fear your God.

⁴⁴‘As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the nations that are around you.

⁴⁵‘And also you may acquire from the sons of the foreign residents who sojourn among you, from them and their families who are with you; as for those whom they have begotten in your land, they also may become your possession.

⁴⁶‘You may even give them as an inheritance to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. ^aBut in respect to your brothers, the sons of Israel, you shall not have dominion over one another with brutality.

Redemption from a Sojourner

⁴⁷‘Now if the ¹means of a sojourner or of a foreign resident with you becomes sufficient, and a brother of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a sojourner who resides with you or to the descendants of a…