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Leviticus 22-24
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 22

Priestly Purity.[a] 1 The Lord said to Moses: 2 Tell Aaron and his sons to treat with respect the sacred offerings which the Israelites consecrate to me; otherwise they will profane my holy name. I am the Lord.

3 [b]Tell them: If any one of you, or of your descendants in any future generation, dares, while he is in a state of uncleanness, to draw near the sacred offerings which the Israelites consecrate to the Lord, such a one shall be cut off from my presence.(A) I am the Lord.

4 No descendant of Aaron who is stricken with a scaly infection,(B) or who suffers from a genital discharge,(C) may eat of the sacred offerings, until he again becomes clean. Moreover, if anyone touches a person who has become unclean by contact with a corpse,(D) or if anyone has had an emission of semen,(E) 5 or if anyone touches any swarming creature(F) whose uncleanness is contagious or any person whose uncleanness, of whatever kind it may be, is contagious—(G) 6 the one who touches such as these shall be unclean until evening and may not eat of the sacred portions until he has first bathed his body in water.(H) 7 Then, when the sun sets, he shall be clean.(I) Only then may he eat of the sacred offerings, for they are his food. 8 [c]He shall not make himself unclean by eating of any animal that has died of itself or has been killed by wild beasts.(J) I am the Lord.

9 They shall keep my charge so that they will not bear the punishment in this matter and die(K) for their profanation. I am the Lord who makes them holy.

10 Neither an unauthorized person nor a priest’s tenant or laborer may eat of any sacred offering.(L) 11 But a slave[d] whom a priest acquires by purchase or who is born in his house may eat of his food. 12 [e]A priest’s daughter who is married to an unauthorized person may not eat of the sacred contributions. 13 But if a priest’s daughter is widowed or divorced and, having no children, returns to her father’s house, she may then eat of her father’s food as in her youth. No unauthorized person, however, may eat of it. 14 (M)If such a one eats of a sacred offering through inadvertence, that person shall make restitution to the priest for the sacred offering, with an increment of one fifth of the amount. 15 The priests shall not allow the sacred offerings which the Israelites contribute to the Lord to be profaned(N) 16 nor make them incur a penalty when they eat their sacred offerings. For I, the Lord, make them holy.

Unacceptable Victims. 17 [f]The Lord said to Moses: 18 Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites, and tell them: When anyone of the house of Israel, or any alien residing in Israel, who presents an offering, brings a burnt offering(O) as a votive offering or as a voluntary offering to the Lord, 19 if it is to be acceptable for you, it must be an unblemished male of the herd, of the sheep or of the goats.(P) 20 You shall not offer one that has any blemish, for such a one would not be acceptable on your behalf.(Q) 21 When anyone presents a communion sacrifice(R) to the Lord from the herd or the flock in fulfillment of a vow, or as a voluntary offering, if it is to find acceptance, it must be unblemished; it shall not have any blemish. 22 One that is blind or lame or maimed, or one that has running lesions or sores or scabs, you shall not offer to the Lord; do not put such an animal on the altar as an oblation to the Lord. 23 [g]An ox or a sheep that has a leg that is too long or is stunted you may indeed present as a voluntary offering, but it will not be acceptable as a votive offering. 24 One that has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn out or cut off you shall not offer to the Lord. You shall neither do this in your own land 25 nor receive from a foreigner any such animals to offer up as the food of your God; since they are deformed or blemished, they will not be acceptable on your behalf.

26 [h]The Lord said to Moses: 27 When an ox or a lamb or a goat is born, it shall remain with its mother for seven days; only from the eighth day onward will it be acceptable, to be offered as an oblation to the Lord.(S) 28 You shall not slaughter an ox or a sheep on one and the same day with its young. 29 Whenever you offer a thanksgiving sacrifice to the Lord, so offer it that it may be acceptable on your behalf; 30 it must be eaten on the same day; none of it shall be left over until morning.(T) I am the Lord.

31 Be careful to observe my commandments. I am the Lord. 32 Do not profane my holy name, that in the midst of the Israelites I may be hallowed. I, the Lord, make you holy, 33 who led you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord.

Chapter 23

Holy Days.[i] 1 The Lord said to Moses: 2 Speak to the Israelites and tell them: The following are the festivals(U) of the Lord, which you shall declare holy days. These are my festivals:

3 For six days work may be done; but the seventh day is a sabbath of complete rest,[j] a declared holy day; you shall do no work. It is the Lord’s sabbath wherever you dwell.(V)

Passover. 4 These are the festivals of the Lord, holy days which you shall declare at their proper time.(W) 5 The Passover of the Lord[k] falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening twilight.(X) 6 The fifteenth day of this month is the Lord’s feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.(Y) 7 On the first of these days you will have a declared holy day; you shall do no heavy work. 8 On each of the seven days you shall offer an oblation to the Lord. Then on the seventh day you will have a declared holy day; you shall do no heavy work.

9 [l]The Lord said to Moses: 10 Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest, 11 who shall elevate(Z) the sheaf before the Lord that it may be acceptable on your behalf.(AA) On the day after the sabbath[m] the priest shall do this. 12 On this day, when your sheaf is elevated, you shall offer to the Lord for a burnt offering an unblemished yearling lamb. 13 Its grain offering shall be two tenths of an ephah of bran flour mixed with oil, as a sweet-smelling oblation to the Lord; and its libation shall be a fourth of a hin of wine. 14 You shall not eat any bread or roasted grain or fresh kernels until this day, when you bring the offering for your God. This shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations wherever you dwell.

Pentecost. 15 Beginning with the day after the sabbath, the day on which you bring the sheaf for elevation, you shall count seven full weeks;(AB) 16 you shall count to the day after the seventh week, fifty days.[n](AC) Then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord. 17 For the elevated offering of your first-ripened fruits to the Lord, you shall bring with you from wherever you live two loaves of bread made of two tenths of an ephah of bran flour and baked with leaven. 18 Besides the bread, you shall offer to the Lord a burnt offering of seven unblemished yearling lambs, one bull of the herd, and two rams, along with their grain offering and libations, as a sweet-smelling oblation to the Lord. 19 One male goat shall be sacrificed as a purification offering, and two yearling lambs as a communion sacrifice. 20 The priest shall elevate them—that is, the two lambs—with the bread of the first-ripened fruits as an elevated offering before the Lord; these shall be sacred to the Lord and belong to the priest. 21 On this same day you shall make a proclamation: there shall be a declared holy day for you; no heavy work may be done. This shall be a perpetual statute through all your generations wherever you dwell.

22 (AD)When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not be so thorough that you reap the field to its very edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. These things you shall leave for the poor and the alien. I, the Lord, am your God.

New Year’s Day. 23 The Lord said to Moses: 24 Tell the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month[o](AE) you will have a sabbath rest, with trumpet blasts as a reminder, a declared holy day; 25 you shall do no heavy work, and you shall offer an oblation to the Lord.

The Day of Atonement. 26 The Lord said to Moses: 27 Now the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement.[p](AF) You will have a declared holy day. You shall humble yourselves and offer an oblation to the Lord. 28 On this day you shall not do any work, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the Lord, your God. 29 Those who do not humble themselves on this day shall be cut off from the people. 30 If anyone does any work on this day, I will remove that person from the midst of the people. 31 You shall do no work; this is a perpetual statute throughout your generations wherever you dwell; 32 it is a sabbath of complete rest for you. You shall humble yourselves. Beginning on the evening of the ninth of the month, you shall keep your sabbath from evening to evening.

The Feast of Booths. 33 The Lord said to Moses: 34 Tell the Israelites: The fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Lord’s feast of Booths,[q](AG) which shall continue for seven days. 35 On the first day, a declared holy day, you shall do no heavy work. 36 For seven days you shall offer an oblation to the Lord, and on the eighth day you will have a declared holy day. You shall offer an oblation to the Lord. It is the festival closing. You shall do no heavy work.

37 [r]These, therefore, are the festivals of the Lord which you shall declare holy days, in order to offer as an oblation to the Lord burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day, 38 in addition to the Lord’s sabbaths, your donations, your various votive offerings, and the voluntary offerings that you present to the Lord.

39 On the fifteenth day, then, of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord[s] for a whole week. The first and the eighth day shall be days of rest. 40 On the first day you shall gather fruit of majestic trees, branches of palms, and boughs[t] of leafy trees and valley willows. Then for a week you shall make merry before the Lord, your God. 41 You shall keep this feast of the Lord for one whole week in the year. By perpetual statute throughout your generations in the seventh month of the year, you shall keep it. 42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days; every native-born Israelite shall dwell in booths, 43 that your descendants may realize that, when I led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, I made them dwell in booths. I, the Lord, am your God.

44 Thus did Moses announce to the Israelites the festivals of the Lord.

Chapter 24

The Sanctuary Light.[u] 1 The Lord said to Moses: 2 Order the Israelites to bring you clear oil of crushed olives for the light, so that you may keep the lamp burning regularly.(AH) 3 In the tent of meeting, outside the veil that hangs in front of the covenant, Aaron shall set up the lamp to burn before the Lord regularly, from evening till morning, by a perpetual statute throughout your generations. 4 He shall set up the lamps on the pure gold menorah to burn regularly before the Lord.

The Showbread.[v] 5 You shall take bran flour and bake it into twelve cakes,(AI) using two tenths of an ephah of flour for each cake. 6 These you shall place in two piles, six in each pile, on the pure gold table before the Lord. 7 With each pile put some pure frankincense, which shall serve as an oblation to the Lord, a token of the bread offering. 8 Regularly on each sabbath day the bread(AJ) shall be set out before the Lord on behalf of the Israelites by an everlasting covenant. 9 It shall belong to Aaron and his sons, who must eat it in a sacred place, since it is most sacred,(AK) his as a perpetual due from the oblations to the Lord.

Punishment of Blasphemy.[w] 10 A man born of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and in the camp a fight broke out between the son of the Israelite woman and an Israelite man. 11 The son of the Israelite woman uttered the Lord’s name in a curse and blasphemed. So he was brought to Moses—now his mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan— 12 and he was kept in custody till a decision from the Lord should settle the case for them.(AL) 13 The Lord then said to Moses: 14 Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and when all who heard him have laid their hands[x] on his head,(AM) let the whole community stone him. 15 Tell the Israelites: Anyone who blasphemes God shall bear the penalty; 16 whoever utters the name of the Lord in a curse shall be put to death.(AN) The whole community shall stone that person; alien and native-born alike must be put to death for uttering the Lord’s name in a curse.

17 [y]Whoever takes the life of any human being shall be put to death;(AO) 18 whoever takes the life of an animal shall make restitution of another animal, life for a life.(AP) 19 [z]Anyone who inflicts a permanent injury on his or her neighbor shall receive the same in return: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The same injury that one gives another shall be inflicted in return.(AQ) 21 Whoever takes the life of an animal shall make restitution, but whoever takes a human life shall be put to death. 22 You shall have but one rule, for alien and native-born alike.(AR) I, the Lord, am your God.

23 When Moses told this to the Israelites, they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him;(AS) they did just as the Lord commanded Moses.

Footnotes

  1. 22:1–16 While priests with bodily imperfections may eat the holy sacrifices (21:16–23), those impure and those not of the priestly household may not.
  2. 22:3–8 On uncleanness, see chaps. 11–15 and notes there.
  3. 22:8 See note on 11:39–40.
  4. 22:11 Slave: in contrast to the tenant or hired worker of v. 10, the slave, who is by definition a foreigner, is part of the priest’s household and therefore may eat of sacrifices.
  5. 22:12–13 A priest’s daughter, when a dependent of her father, may eat of the lesser holy offerings.
  6. 22:17–25 This passage complements the section on the bodily imperfections of priests in 21:16–23. The laws taken together indicate that whoever and whatever approaches and contacts the altar needs to be physically unimpaired.
  7. 22:23 Burnt offerings and communion sacrifices brought as voluntary offerings may have slight defects, probably because they are freely given and do not depend upon a prior promise as do votive offerings.
  8. 22:26–30 Other activities and procedures that would impair sacrifice are appended here. The rules in vv. 27–28 are reminiscent of the rule not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk (Ex 23:19; 34:26; Dt 14:21) and not to take a bird and its eggs (Dt 22:6–7), all of which have a humanitarian tenor.
  9. 23:1–44 This is paralleled by another calendar from the Priestly tradition, in Nm 28–29. Non-Priestly resumes of festal and holy observances are found in Ex 23:10–17; 34:18–24 and Dt 16:1–17.
  10. 23:3 Sabbath of complete rest: the sabbath and the Day of Atonement are called “sabbaths of complete rest” (Ex 16:23; 31:15; 35:2; Lv 16:31; 23:32). Work of any sort is prohibited on these days (Lv 23:3, 28; Nm 29:7) as opposed to other holy days where only laborious work is prohibited but light work, such as preparing food, is allowed (Ex 12:16; cf. Lv 23:7, 8, 21, 25, 35, 36; Nm 28:18, 25, 26; 29:1, 12, 35).
  11. 23:5–6 The Passover of the Lord…feast of Unleavened Bread: the two occasions were probably separate originally. Combined they celebrate the exodus from Egypt. Cf. Ex 12:1–20, 43–49; Nm 28:16–25.
  12. 23:9–14 Around Passover a first fruits offering is to be brought (see 2:14), consisting of a sheaf of barley, the crop that matures at this time of year.
  13. 23:11 Day after the sabbath: the singular term shabbat “sabbath” may mean “week” here and refer to the seven-day period of the feast of Unleavened Bread. According to this interpretation, the barley sheaf is offered the day after the week of Unleavened Bread. Others understand it as referring to the first or last day of Unleavened Bread.
  14. 23:16–21 Fifty days: Pentecost. This festival occurs on a single day, fifty days after the feast of Unleavened Bread, elsewhere called the “feast of the Harvest” (Ex 23:16), “Day of First Fruits” (Nm 28:26), and “feast of Weeks” (Ex 34:22; Dt 16:10, 16). The name Pentecost comes from the later Greek term for the holy day (cf. Acts 2:1; 20:16; 1 Cor 16:8), referring to the fiftieth day. This is the occasion for bringing the first fruits of the wheat harvest.
  15. 23:24 First day of the seventh month: the seventh new moon is counted from a new year beginning in the spring (cf. v. 5). Like the seventh day in the week, it is preeminent among the new moon days (cf. Nm 28:11–15; 29:1–6).
  16. 23:27 Day of Atonement: see chap. 16 and notes there.
  17. 23:34 Feast of Booths: this is the final harvest festival of the year celebrating the remaining harvest. It is called the “feast of Ingathering” (Ex 23:16; 34:22), the “feast of Booths” (Lv 23:34; Dt 16:13), or simply the “feast” (1 Kgs 8:65). It is a seven-day festival with an eighth closing day. The first and eighth days are rest days (see note on v. 3).
  18. 23:37–38 This appears to be the original conclusion of the chapter.
  19. 23:39–43 The feast of the Lord: the feast of Booths, the preeminent festival. This section supplements vv. 33–36 by prescribing the popular activities for the festival.
  20. 23:40–43 Fruit…branches…boughs: the fruit and/or foliage from these trees is to be gathered, but it is not said how they are used. The command to make merry suggests they may have been used in a procession or even circumambulation of the altar (cf. Ps 26:6). Later tradition understood these prescriptions as referring to making the booths out of the foliage (Neh 8:15).
  21. 24:1–4 On the lamp, see Ex 25:31–40; 26:35; 27:20–21; 37:17–24; 40:24–25; Nm 8:1–4. It occupies the south side of the anterior room of the sanctuary tent and provides light for that room.
  22. 24:5–9 On the bread table, see Ex 25:23–29; 26:35; 37:10–16; 40:22–23. It occupies the north side of the anterior room of the sanctuary tent. The bread is a type of grain offering (see note on 2:1).
  23. 24:10–22 This is a narrative where an offense leads to clarifying revelation similar to the cases in Lv 10:1–7 and 16:1–34; Nm 9:6–14 and 15:32–36.
  24. 24:14 Laid their hands: see notes on 1:4 and 16:21. It may be that blasphemy generated a type of pollution which the hearers return to the culprit by this gesture.
  25. 24:17–22 A digression dealing with bodily injury follows the blasphemy rules. It may have been appended since the first case is another example of the death penalty. But the section develops according to its own logic. All legal traditions require death for homicide: Gn 9:5–6; Ex 21:12–14; Nm 35:9–34; Dt 19:1–13; cf. Ex 20:13 and Dt 5:17.
  26. 24:19–20 The phrase “life for a life” in v. 18 leads to introducing the law of talion in vv. 19–20. Some have interpreted the law here and the similar expressions in Ex 21:23–25 and Dt 19:21 to mean that monetary compensation equal to the injury is to be paid, though the wording of the law here and the context of Dt 19:21 indicate an injury is to be inflicted upon the injurer.
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Leviticus 21
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Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.