Leviticus 24–25

Chapter 24

The Lamp and the Bread of the Sanctuary

¹Then the Lord 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 the Lord continually; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations.

⁴“He shall keep the lamps in order on the ^apure gold lampstand before the Lord 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“You shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the ^apure gold table before the Lord.

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

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

⁹“^aIt 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 Lord’s offerings 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.

¹¹The 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.)

¹²They put him in ¹custody ²so that ^athe command of the Lord might be made clear to them.

¹³Then the Lord 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“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 the Lord shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

“An Eye for an Eye”

¹⁷‘^aIf a man ¹takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸‘^aThe one who ¹takes the life of an animal shall make it good, 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 ¹kills an animal shall make it good, but ^athe one who kills a man shall be put to death.

²²‘There shall be ^aone ¹standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord 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 the Lord had commanded Moses.

Chapter 25

The Sabbatic Year and Year of Jubilee

¹The Lord 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 shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the Lord.

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

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

⁵‘Your harvest’s ¹aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year.

⁶‘^aAll of you shall have the sabbath products of the land for food; yourself, and your male and female slaves, and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as aliens with you.

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

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 consecrate 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 property, and each of you shall return to his family.

¹¹‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.

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

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

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

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

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 a number of crops he is selling to you.

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

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

¹⁹‘Then the land will yield its produce, 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 crops?”

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

²²‘When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat ^aold things from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in.

The Law of Redemption

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

²⁴‘Thus for every ¹piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.

²⁵‘^aIf a ¹fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.

²⁶‘Or in case a man has no kinsman, but so ¹recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption,

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

²⁸‘But if ¹he has not found sufficient means to get it back for 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 property.

²⁹‘Likewise, if a man sells a dwelling house 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 bought back 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 this possession ³reverts 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.

Of Poor Countrymen

³⁵‘^aNow in case a ¹countryman of yours becomes poor and his ²means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.

³⁶‘^aDo not take ¹usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your ²countryman may live with you.

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

³⁸‘^aI am the Lord 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 ¹countryman 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 sojourner; 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 go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers.

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

⁴³‘^aYou shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.

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

⁴⁵‘Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have ¹produced in your land; they also may become your possession.

⁴⁶‘You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. ^aBut in respect to your ¹countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.

Of Redeeming a Poor Man

⁴⁷‘Now if the ¹means of a stranger or of a sojourner with you becomes sufficient, and a ²countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stranger who is sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger’s family,

⁴⁸then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him,

⁴⁹or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or ^1aif he…