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Offering First Fruits

26 “Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and live in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the [a]place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence). You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the Lord [b]my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ Then the priest will take the basket from you and place it before the altar of the Lord your God. And you shall say before the Lord your God, ‘My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean, and he [along with his family] went down to Egypt and [c]lived there [as strangers], few in number; but while there he became a great, mighty and populous nation. And the Egyptians treated us badly and oppressed us, and imposed hard labor on us. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers for help, and He heard our voice and saw our suffering and our labor and our [cruel] oppression; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror [suffered by the Egyptians] and with signs and with wonders; and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land [d]flowing with milk and honey. 10 And now, look, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which You, O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall place it before the Lord your God, and shall worship before the Lord your God; 11 and you and the Levite and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) among you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given you and your household.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 26:2 Some scholars believe this refers to Jerusalem, others suggest the tabernacle. This is not to be confused with the annual offering of the first fruits.
  2. Deuteronomy 26:3 So with Gr; Heb your.
  3. Deuteronomy 26:5 Lit sojourned.
  4. Deuteronomy 26:9 This phrase referred to the abundant fertility of the land of Canaan. Milk (typically that of goats and sheep) was associated with abundance; “honey” referred mainly to syrups made from dates or grapes and was the epitome of sweetness. Bees’ honey was very rare and was considered the choicest of foods.

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