²⁹ “You must not hold anything back when you give me offerings from your crops and your wine.

“You must give me your firstborn sons.

¹⁶ “Second, celebrate the Festival of Harvest,^[a] when you bring me the first crops of your harvest.

“Finally, celebrate the Festival of the Final Harvest^[b] at the end of the harvest season, when you have harvested all the crops from your fields.

² “Dedicate to me every firstborn among the Israelites. The first offspring to be born, of both humans and animals, belongs to me.”

¹⁸ He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.^[a]

³³ Seek the Kingdom of God^[a] above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

² put some of the first produce from each crop you harvest into a basket and bring it to the designated place of worship—the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored. ³ Go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, ‘With this gift I acknowledge to the Lord your God that I have entered the land he swore to our ancestors he would give us.’ ⁴ The priest will then take the basket from your hand and set it before the altar of the Lord your God.

⁵ “You must then say in the presence of the Lord your God, ‘My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Aramean who went to live as a foreigner in Egypt. His family arrived few in number, but in Egypt they became a large and mighty nation. ⁶ When the Egyptians oppressed and humiliated us by making us their slaves, ⁷ we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors. He heard our cries and saw our hardship, toil, and oppression. ⁸ So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and powerful arm, with overwhelming terror, and with miraculous signs and wonders. ⁹ He brought us to this place and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey! ¹⁰ And now, O Lord, I have brought you the first portion of the harvest you have given me from the ground.’ Then place the produce before the Lord your God, and bow to the ground in worship before him.

¹⁹ “As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the Lord your God.

“You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

¹² you must present all firstborn sons and firstborn male animals to the Lord, for they belong to him.

²³ And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children,^[a] including the new bodies he has promised us.