² For if the message declared through angels proved valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty,^(A)

⁵³ You are the ones who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”^(A)

The Purpose of the Law

¹⁹ Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring^[a] would come to whom the promise had been made, and it was ordained through angels by a mediator.^(A)

²⁸ Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy “on the testimony of two or three witnesses.”^(A)

Judgment on False Teachers

⁵ Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, once and for all, that Jesus, who saved^[a] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.^(A)

²⁶ “ ‘Cursed be anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by observing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’^(A)

²⁶ He considered abuse suffered for the Christ^[a] to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward.

³⁵ Do not, therefore, abandon that boldness of yours; it brings a great reward.

¹² As for anyone who presumes to disobey the priest appointed to minister there to the Lord your God or the judge, that person shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

³⁰ But whoever acts high-handedly, whether native-born or an alien, affronts the Lord and shall be cut off from among the people. ³¹ Because of having despised the word of the Lord and broken his commandment, such a person shall be utterly cut off and bear the guilt.”^(A)

Penalty for Violating the Sabbath

³² When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.^{(B) 33} Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation. ³⁴ They put him in custody because it was not clear what should be done to him.^{(C) 35} Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.”^{(D) 36} The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.