Leviticus 23-25

English Standard Version

Feasts of the Lord

23 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ^(A)These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall ^(B)proclaim as ^(C)holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.

The Sabbath

³^(D)“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.

The Passover

⁴^(E)“These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, the ^(F)holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. ⁵^(G)In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight,^[a] is the Lord's Passover. ⁶And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. ⁷^(H)On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. ⁸But you shall present a food offering to the Lord for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.”

The Feast of Firstfruits

⁹And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁰“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ^(I)When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of ^(J)the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, ¹¹and he shall ^(K)wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. ¹²And on the day when you ^(L)wave the sheaf, you shall offer a ^(M)male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. ¹³^(N)And the grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah^[b] of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, ^(O)and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin.^[c] ¹⁴And you shall eat neither bread nor grain ^(P)parched or ^(Q)fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

The Feast of Weeks

¹⁵^(R)“You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the ^(S)wave offering. ¹⁶You shall count ^(T)fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of ^(U)new grain to the Lord. ¹⁷You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as ^(V)firstfruits to the Lord. ¹⁸And you shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one bull from the herd and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹⁹And you shall offer one ^(W)male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of ^(X)peace offerings. ²⁰And the priest shall ^(Y)wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. ^(Z)They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. ²¹And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.

²²“And ^(AA)when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

The Feast of Trumpets

²³And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In ^(AB)the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, ^(AC)a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. ²⁵You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord.”

The Day of Atonement

²⁶And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁷“Now ^(AD)on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves^[d] and present a food offering to the Lord. ²⁸And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. ²⁹For whoever is not afflicted^[e] on that very day ^(AE)shall be cut off from his people. ³⁰And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. ³¹You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. ³²It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.”

The Feast of Booths

³³And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ³⁴“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, ^(AF)On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths^[f] to the Lord. ³⁵On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. ³⁶For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord. ^(AG)On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a ^(AH)solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work.

³⁷^(AI)“These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord food offerings, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day, ³⁸^(AJ)besides the Lord's Sabbaths and besides your gifts and besides all your vow offerings and besides all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord.

³⁹“On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have ^(AK)gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. ⁴⁰And ^(AL)you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and ^(AM)you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. ⁴¹^(AN)You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. ⁴²^(AO)You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, ⁴³that ^(AP)your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

⁴⁴Thus Moses ^(AQ)declared to the people of Israel the appointed feasts of the Lord.

The Lamps

24 ^(AR)The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. ³Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴He shall arrange the lamps on the ^(AS)lampstand of pure gold^[g] before the Lord regularly.

Bread for the Tabernacle

⁵“You shall take fine flour and bake twelve ^(AT)loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah^[h] shall be in each loaf. ⁶And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, ^(AU)on the table of pure gold^[i] before the Lord. ⁷And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. ⁸^(AV)Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. ⁹And ^(AW)it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and ^(AX)they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual due.”

Punishment for Blasphemy

¹⁰Now an Israelite woman's son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, ¹¹and the Israelite woman's son ^(AY)blasphemed the ^(AZ)Name, and cursed. Then they ^(BA)brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. ¹²And ^(BB)they put him in custody, ^(BC)till the will of the Lord should be clear to them.

¹³Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁴^(BD)“Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him ^(BE)lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. ¹⁵And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall ^(BF)bear his sin. ¹⁶Whoever ^(BG)blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall 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^(BH)“Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. ¹⁸^(BI)Whoever takes an animal's life shall make it good, life for life. ¹⁹If anyone injures his neighbor, ^(BJ)as he has done it shall be done to him, ²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. ²¹^(BK)Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, ^(BL)and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. ²²You shall have the ^(BM)same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.” ²³So Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and ^(BN)they brought out of the camp the one who had cursed and stoned him with stones. Thus the people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses.

The Sabbath Year

25 ^(BO)The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ²“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into ^(BP)the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. ³For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, ⁴but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵^(BQ)You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ⁶The Sabbath of the land^[j] shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves^[k] and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, ⁷and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: ^(BR)all its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸“You shall count seven weeks^[l] of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. ⁹Then you shall sound ^(BS)the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. ^(BT)On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. ¹⁰And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^(BU)proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of ^(BV)you shall return to his clan. ¹¹That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it ^(BW)you shall neither sow nor reap ^(BX)what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹²For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. ^(BY)You may eat the produce of the field.^[m]

¹³^(BZ)“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. ¹⁴And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, ^(CA)you shall not wrong one another. ¹⁵^(CB)You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. ¹⁶If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. ¹⁷^(CC)You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸^(CD)“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then ^(CE)you will dwell in the land securely. ¹⁹^(CF)The land will yield its fruit, and ^(CG)you will eat your fill ^(CH)and dwell in it securely. ²⁰And if you say, ^(CI)‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if ^(CJ)we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ ²¹I will ^(CK)command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. ²²^(CL)When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of ^(CM)the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.

Redemption of Property

²³“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for ^(CN)the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. ²⁴And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

²⁵“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, ^(CO)then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, ²⁷let ^(CP)him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. ²⁸But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall ^(CQ)be released, and ^(CR)he shall return to his property.

²⁹“If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. ³⁰If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; ^(CS)it shall not be released in the jubilee. ³¹But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and ^(CT)they shall be released in the jubilee. ³²As for ^(CU)the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. ³³And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. ³⁴But the fields ^(CV)of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.

Kindness for Poor Brothers

³⁵“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, ^(CW)you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. ³⁶^(CX)Take no interest from him or profit, but ^(CY)fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. ³⁷^(CZ)You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. ³⁸^(DA)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^(DB)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ⁴¹^(DC)Then he shall go out from you, ^(DD)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(DE)to the possession of his fathers. ⁴²For they are ^(DF)my servants,^[n] whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ⁴³^(DG)You shall not rule over him ^(DH)ruthlessly but ^(DI)shall fear your God. ⁴⁴As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ⁴⁵^(DJ)You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel ^(DK)you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Redeeming a Poor Man

⁴⁷“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and ^(DL)your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, ⁴⁸then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, ⁴⁹or his uncle or his cousin may ^(DM)redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he ^(DN)grows rich he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be ^(DO)rated as the time of a hired worker. ⁵¹If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. ⁵²If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. ⁵³He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. ^(DP)He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. ⁵⁴And if he is not redeemed by these means, then ^(DQ)he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. ⁵⁵For it is ^(DR)to me that the people of Israel are servants.^[o] They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.