Numbers 4

Duties of the Kohathite Clan

1 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ² “Record the names of the members of the clans and families of the Kohathite division of the tribe of Levi. ³ List all the men between the ages of thirty and fifty who are eligible to serve in the Tabernacle.^[a]

⁴ “The duties of the Kohathites at the Tabernacle will relate to the most sacred objects.⁵ When the camp moves, Aaron and his sons must enter the Tabernacle first to take down the inner curtain and cover the Ark of the Covenant^[b] with it. ⁶ Then they must cover the inner curtain with fine goatskin leather and spread over that a single piece of blue cloth. Finally, they must put the carrying poles of the Ark in place.

⁷ “Next they must spread a blue cloth over the table where the Bread of the Presence is displayed, and on the cloth they will place the bowls, ladles, jars, pitchers, and the special bread. ⁸ They must spread a scarlet cloth over all of this, and finally a covering of fine goatskin leather on top of the scarlet cloth. Then they must insert the carrying poles into the table.

⁹ “Next they must cover the lampstand with a blue cloth, along with its lamps, lamp snuffers, trays, and special jars of olive oil. ¹⁰ Then they must cover the lampstand and its accessories with fine goatskin leather and place the bundle on a carrying frame.

¹¹ “Next they must spread a blue cloth over the gold incense altar and cover this cloth with fine goatskin leather. Then they must attach the carrying poles to the altar. ¹² They must take all the remaining furnishings of the sanctuary and wrap them in a blue cloth, cover them with fine goatskin leather, and place them on the carrying frame.

¹³ “They must remove the ashes from the altar for sacrifices and cover the altar with a purple cloth. ¹⁴ All the altar utensils—the firepans, meat forks, shovels, basins, and all the containers—must be placed on the cloth, and a covering of fine goatskin leather must be spread over them. Finally, they must put the carrying poles in place. ¹⁵ The camp will be ready to move when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the sacred articles. The Kohathites will come and carry these things to the next destination. But they must not touch the sacred objects, or they will die. So these are the things from the Tabernacle that the Kohathites must carry.

¹⁶ “Eleazar son of Aaron the priest will be responsible for the oil of the lampstand, the fragrant incense, the daily grain offering, and the anointing oil. In fact, Eleazar will be responsible for the entire Tabernacle and everything in it, including the sanctuary and its furnishings.”

¹⁷ Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ¹⁸ “Do not let the Kohathite clans be destroyed from among the Levites! ¹⁹ This is what you must do so they will live and not die when they approach the most sacred objects. Aaron and his sons must always go in with them and assign a specific duty or load to each person. ²⁰ The Kohathites must never enter the sanctuary to look at the sacred objects for even a moment, or they will die.”

Duties of the Gershonite Clan

²¹ And the Lord said to Moses, ²² “Record the names of the members of the clans and families of the Gershonite division of the tribe of Levi. ²³ List all the men between the ages of thirty and fifty who are eligible to serve in the Tabernacle.

²⁴ “These Gershonite clans will be responsible for general service and carrying loads. ²⁵ They must carry the curtains of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle itself with its coverings, the outer covering of fine goatskin leather, and the curtain for the Tabernacle entrance. ²⁶ They are also to carry the curtains for the courtyard walls that surround the Tabernacle and altar, the curtain across the courtyard entrance, the ropes, and all the equipment related to their use. The Gershonites are responsible for all these items. ²⁷ Aaron and his sons will direct the Gershonites regarding all their duties, whether it involves moving the equipment or doing other work. They must assign the Gershonites responsibility for the loads they are to carry.²⁸ So these are the duties assigned to the Gershonite clans at the Tabernacle. They will be directly responsible to Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.

Duties of the Merarite Clan

²⁹ “Now record the names of the members of the clans and families of the Merarite division of the tribe of Levi. ³⁰ List all the men between the ages of thirty and fifty who are eligible to serve in the Tabernacle.

³¹ “Their only duty at the Tabernacle will be to carry loads. They will carry the frames of the Tabernacle, the crossbars, the posts, and the bases; ³² also the posts for the courtyard walls with their bases, pegs, and ropes; and all the accessories and everything else related to their use. Assign the various loads to each man by name. ³³ So these are the duties of the Merarite clans at the Tabernacle. They are directly responsible to Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.”

Summary of the Registration

³⁴ So Moses, Aaron, and the other leaders of the community listed the members of the Kohathite division by their clans and families. ³⁵ The list included all the men between thirty and fifty years of age who were eligible for service in the Tabernacle, ³⁶ and the total number came to 2,750. ³⁷ So this was the total of all those from the Kohathite clans who were eligible to serve at the Tabernacle. Moses and Aaron listed them, just as the Lord had commanded through Moses.

³⁸ The Gershonite division was also listed by its clans and families. ³⁹ The list included all the men between thirty and fifty years of age who were eligible for service in the Tabernacle,⁴⁰ and the total number came to 2,630. ⁴¹ So this was the total of all those from the Gershonite clans who were eligible to serve at the Tabernacle. Moses and Aaron listed them, just as the Lord had commanded.

⁴² The Merarite division was also listed by its clans and families. ⁴³ The list included all the men between thirty and fifty years of age who were eligible for service in the Tabernacle,⁴⁴ and the total number came to 3,200. ⁴⁵ So this was the total of all those from the Merarite clans who were eligible for service. Moses and Aaron listed them, just as the Lord had commanded through Moses.

⁴⁶ So Moses, Aaron, and the leaders of Israel listed all the Levites by their clans and families.⁴⁷ All the men between thirty and fifty years of age who were eligible for service in the Tabernacle and for its transportation ⁴⁸ numbered 8,580. ⁴⁹ When their names were recorded, as the Lord had commanded through Moses, each man was assigned his task and told what to carry.

And so the registration was completed, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Leviticus 27

Redemption of Gifts Offered to the Lord

1 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate someone to the Lord by paying the value of that person, ³ here is the scale of values to be used. A man between the ages of twenty and sixty is valued at fifty shekels^[a] of silver, as measured by the sanctuary shekel. ⁴ A woman of that age is valued at thirty shekels^[b] of silver. ⁵ A boy between the ages of five and twenty is valued at twenty shekels of silver; a girl of that age is valued at ten shekels^[c] of silver. ⁶ A boy between the ages of one month and five years is valued at five shekels of silver; a girl of that age is valued at three shekels^[d] of silver. ⁷ A man older than sixty is valued at fifteen shekels of silver; a woman of that age is valued at ten shekels^[e] of silver. ⁸ If you desire to make such a vow but cannot afford to pay the required amount, take the person to the priest. He will determine the amount for you to pay based on what you can afford.

⁹ “If your vow involves giving an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the Lord, any gift to the Lord will be considered holy. ¹⁰ You may not exchange or substitute it for another animal—neither a good animal for a bad one nor a bad animal for a good one. But if you do exchange one animal for another, then both the original animal and its substitute will be considered holy. ¹¹ If your vow involves an unclean animal—one that is not acceptable as an offering to the Lord—then you must bring the animal to the priest. ¹² He will assess its value, and his assessment will be final, whether high or low. ¹³ If you want to buy back the animal, you must pay the value set by the priest, plus 20 percent.

¹⁴ “If someone dedicates a house to the Lord, the priest will come to assess its value. The priest’s assessment will be final, whether high or low. ¹⁵ If the person who dedicated the house wants to buy it back, he must pay the value set by the priest, plus 20 percent. Then the house will again be his.

¹⁶ “If someone dedicates to the Lord a piece of his family property, its value will be assessed according to the amount of seed required to plant it—fifty shekels of silver for a field planted with five bushels of barley seed.^[f] 17 If the field is dedicated to the Lord in the Year of Jubilee, then the entire assessment will apply. ¹⁸ But if the field is dedicated after the Year of Jubilee, the priest will assess the land’s value in proportion to the number of years left until the next Year of Jubilee. Its assessed value is reduced each year. ¹⁹ If the person who dedicated the field wants to buy it back, he must pay the value set by the priest, plus 20 percent. Then the field will again be legally his. ²⁰ But if he does not want to buy it back, and it is sold to someone else, the field can no longer be bought back. ²¹ When the field is released in the Year of Jubilee, it will be holy, a field specially set apart^[g] for the Lord. It will become the property of the priests.

²² “If someone dedicates to the Lord a field he has purchased but which is not part of his family property, ²³ the priest will assess its value based on the number of years left until the next Year of Jubilee. On that day he must give the assessed value of the land as a sacred donation to the Lord. ²⁴ In the Year of Jubilee the field must be returned to the person from whom he purchased it, the one who inherited it as family property. ²⁵ (All the payments must be measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel,^[h] which equals twenty gerahs.)

²⁶ “You may not dedicate a firstborn animal to the Lord, for the firstborn of your cattle, sheep, and goats already belong to him. ²⁷ However, you may buy back the firstborn of a ceremonially unclean animal by paying the priest’s assessment of its worth, plus 20 percent. If you do not buy it back, the priest will sell it at its assessed value.

²⁸ “However, anything specially set apart for the Lord—whether a person, an animal, or family property—must never be sold or bought back. Anything devoted in this way has been set apart as holy, and it belongs to the Lord. ²⁹ No person specially set apart for destruction may be bought back. Such a person must be put to death.

³⁰ “One-tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord and must be set apart to him as holy. ³¹ If you want to buy back the Lord’s tenth of the grain or fruit, you must pay its value, plus 20 percent. ³² Count off every tenth animal from your herds and flocks and set them apart for the Lord as holy. ³³ You may not pick and choose between good and bad animals, and you may not substitute one for another. But if you do exchange one animal for another, then both the original animal and its substitute will be considered holy and cannot be bought back.”

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

Leviticus 25

The Sabbath Year

1 While Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Lord said to him, ² “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you have entered the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath rest before the Lord every seventh year. ³ For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, ⁴ but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord’s Sabbath. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that year. ⁵ And don’t store away the crops that grow on their own or gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. ⁶ But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during its Sabbath. This applies to you, your male and female servants, your hired workers, and the temporary residents who live with you. ⁷ Your livestock and the wild animals in your land will also be allowed to eat what the land produces.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸ “In addition, you must count off seven Sabbath years, seven sets of seven years, adding up to forty-nine years in all. ⁹ Then on the Day of Atonement in the fiftieth year,^[a] blow the ram’s horn loud and long throughout the land. ¹⁰ Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan.¹¹ This fiftieth year will be a jubilee for you. During that year you must not plant your fields or store away any of the crops that grow on their own, and don’t gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. ¹² It will be a jubilee year for you, and you must keep it holy. But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own. ¹³ In the Year of Jubilee each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors.

¹⁴ “When you make an agreement with your neighbor to buy or sell property, you must not take advantage of each other. ¹⁵ When you buy land from your neighbor, the price you pay must be based on the number of years since the last jubilee. The seller must set the price by taking into account the number of years remaining until the next Year of Jubilee. ¹⁶ The more years until the next jubilee, the higher the price; the fewer years, the lower the price. After all, the person selling the land is actually selling you a certain number of harvests. ¹⁷ Show your fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸ “If you want to live securely in the land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations.¹⁹ Then the land will yield large crops, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it. ²⁰ But you might ask, ‘What will we eat during the seventh year, since we are not allowed to plant or harvest crops that year?’ ²¹ Be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce a crop large enough for three years. ²² When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested in the ninth year.

Redemption of Property

²³ “The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.

²⁴ “With every purchase of land you must grant the seller the right to buy it back. ²⁵ If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell some family land, then a close relative should buy it back for him. ²⁶ If there is no close relative to buy the land, but the person who sold it gets enough money to buy it back, ²⁷ he then has the right to redeem it from the one who bought it. The price of the land will be discounted according to the number of years until the next Year of Jubilee. In this way the original owner can then return to the land. ²⁸ But if the original owner cannot afford to buy back the land, it will remain with the new owner until the next Year of Jubilee. In the jubilee year, the land must be returned to the original owners so they can return to their family land.

²⁹ “Anyone who sells a house inside a walled town has the right to buy it back for a full year after its sale. During that year, the seller retains the right to buy it back. ³⁰ But if it is not bought back within a year, the sale of the house within the walled town cannot be reversed. It will become the permanent property of the buyer. It will not be returned to the original owner in the Year of Jubilee. ³¹ But a house in a village—a settlement without fortified walls—will be treated like property in the countryside. Such a house may be bought back at any time, and it must be returned to the original owner in the Year of Jubilee.

³² “The Levites always have the right to buy back a house they have sold within the towns allotted to them. ³³ And any property that is sold by the Levites—all houses within the Levitical towns—must be returned in the Year of Jubilee. After all, the houses in the towns reserved for the Levites are the only property they own in all Israel. ³⁴ The open pastureland around the Levitical towns may never be sold. It is their permanent possession.

Redemption of the Poor and Enslaved

³⁵ “If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and cannot support himself, support him as you would a foreigner or a temporary resident and allow him to live with you. ³⁶ Do not charge interest or make a profit at his expense. Instead, show your fear of God by letting him live with you as your relative. ³⁷ Remember, do not charge interest on money you lend him or make a profit on food you sell him. ³⁸ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

³⁹ “If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell himself to you, do not treat him as a slave. ⁴⁰ Treat him instead as a hired worker or as a temporary resident who lives with you, and he will serve you only until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ At that time he and his children will no longer be obligated to you, and they will return to their clans and go back to the land originally allotted to their ancestors. ⁴² The people of Israel are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, so they must never be sold as slaves. ⁴³ Show your fear of God by not treating them harshly.

⁴⁴ “However, you may purchase male and female slaves from among the nations around you.⁴⁵ You may also purchase the children of temporary residents who live among you, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, ⁴⁶ passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat them as slaves, but you must never treat your fellow Israelites this way.

⁴⁷ “Suppose a foreigner or temporary resident becomes rich while living among you. If any of your fellow Israelites fall into poverty and are forced to sell themselves to such a foreigner or to a member of his family, ⁴⁸ they still retain the right to be bought back, even after they have been purchased. They may be bought back by a brother, ⁴⁹ an uncle, or a cousin. In fact, anyone from the extended family may buy them back. They may also redeem themselves if they have prospered. ⁵⁰ They will negotiate the price of their freedom with the person who bought them. The price will be based on the number of years from the time they were sold until the next Year of Jubilee—whatever it would cost to hire a worker for that period of time.⁵¹ If many years still remain until the jubilee, they will repay the proper proportion of what they received when they sold themselves. ⁵² If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, they will repay a small amount for their redemption. ⁵³ The foreigner must treat them as workers hired on a yearly basis. You must not allow a foreigner to treat any of your fellow Israelites harshly. ⁵⁴ If any Israelites have not been bought back by the time the Year of Jubilee arrives, they and their children must be set free at that time. ⁵⁵ For the people of Israel belong to me. They are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lordyour God.

Leviticus 24

Pure Oil and Holy Bread

1 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually. ³ This is the lampstand that stands in the Tabernacle, in front of the inner curtain that shields the Ark of the Covenant.^[a]Aaron must keep the lamps burning in the Lord’s presence all night. This is a permanent law for you, and it must be observed from generation to generation. ⁴ Aaron and the priests must tend the lamps on the pure gold lampstand continually in the Lord’s presence.

⁵ “You must bake twelve flat loaves of bread from choice flour, using four quarts^[b] of flour for each loaf. ⁶ Place the bread before the Lord on the pure gold table, and arrange the loaves in two stacks, with six loaves in each stack. ⁷ Put some pure frankincense near each stack to serve as a representative offering, a special gift presented to the Lord. ⁸ Every Sabbath day this bread must be laid out before the Lord as a gift from the Israelites; it is an ongoing expression of the eternal covenant. ⁹ The loaves of bread will belong to Aaron and his descendants, who must eat them in a sacred place, for they are most holy. It is the permanent right of the priests to claim this portion of the special gifts presented to the Lord.”

An Example of Just Punishment

¹⁰ One day a man who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father came out of his tent and got into a fight with one of the Israelite men. ¹¹ During the fight, this son of an Israelite woman blasphemed the Name of the Lord^[c] with a curse. So the man was brought to Moses for judgment. His mother was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. ¹² They kept the man in custody until the Lord’s will in the matter should become clear to them.

¹³ Then the Lord said to Moses, ¹⁴ “Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard the curse to lay their hands on his head. Then let the entire community stone him to death. ¹⁵ Say to the people of Israel: Those who curse their God will be punished for their sin. ¹⁶ Anyone who blasphemes the Name of the Lord must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel. Any native-born Israelite or foreigner among you who blasphemes the Name of the Lord must be put to death.

¹⁷ “Anyone who takes another person’s life must be put to death.

¹⁸ “Anyone who kills another person’s animal must pay for it in full—a live animal for the animal that was killed.

¹⁹ “Anyone who injures another person must be dealt with according to the injury inflicted—²⁰ a fracture for a fracture, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Whatever anyone does to injure another person must be paid back in kind.

²¹ “Whoever kills an animal must pay for it in full, but whoever kills another person must be put to death.

²² “This same standard applies both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”

²³ After Moses gave all these instructions to the Israelites, they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him to death. The Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.