Beginning

14 You are the children of the Lord your God.

Do not cut yourselves or make a bald spot on your forehead for a dead person, ² because you are set apart as holy people for the Lord your God, and the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the people that are on the face of the earth, to be his people that are his treasured possession.

Clean and Unclean Foods

³ Do not eat any detestable thing.

⁴ These are the animals that you may eat: cattle, sheep, and goats; ⁵ deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. ⁶ Every animal that has divided hoofs with splits in the middle and that rechews its food^[a] among the animals—you may eat them.

⁷ But these you are not to eat from among those that either rechew their food or have divided hoofs with splits in the middle: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because even though they rechew their food, their hoofs are not divided. They are unclean for you. ⁸ The pig, because it has divided hoofs but does not rechew its food, is unclean for you. You are not to eat their flesh and you are not to touch their carcasses.

⁹ These you may eat of all the creatures that live in the water: Any that have fins and scales you may eat. ¹⁰ Any that do not have fins and scales you are not to eat. They are unclean for you.

¹¹ Any clean bird you may eat. ¹² But you are not to eat the following: the eagle, the black vulture, and the bearded vulture, ¹³ the red kite, the black kite, and falcons of every kind, ¹⁴ ravens and crows of every kind, ¹⁵ the eagle owl, the short-eared owl, the long-eared owl, all species of hawks, ¹⁶ the tawny owl, the fisher owl, the screech owl, ¹⁷ the white owl, and the scops owl, the osprey, ¹⁸ the stork and herons of every kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.^{[b] 19} Any swarming insect that flies is unclean for you. None of them are to be eaten. ²⁰ Any clean winged creature you may eat.

²¹ Do not eat the carcass of any animal that is found dead. You may give it to the alien who resides in your town, and he may eat it or sell it to a foreigner, but you are a people who are set apart as holy for the Lord your God.

Do not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.

Tithes

²² Give a tenth of all the yield from your seed that comes out of the field every year.

²³ Eat the tithe in the presence of the Lord your God in the place that he will choose to establish his name—the tenth of your grain, your new wine, and your fresh oil, as well as the firstborn of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

²⁴ When the Lord your God blesses you, if the distance of your journey is so long that you cannot carry the tithe with you, because the place that the Lord your God will choose to establish his name is far away from you, ²⁵ then you may exchange the tithe for silver and take the silver in your hand and travel to the place that the Lord your God will choose for himself. ²⁶ There exchange the silver for anything that you desire—animals from the herd or the flock, or wine or beer, or anything that you may want. Then eat it there before the Lord your God and rejoice, both you and your household.

²⁷ But you must not neglect the Levites who reside within the gates of your cities, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you. ²⁸ At the end of every third year, bring out the entire tithe of your produce from that year and store it in your towns. ²⁹ Then the Levites may come, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you, and also the aliens and the fatherless and the widows within your towns, and they may eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that your hands perform.

The Sabbatical Year

15 At the end of seven years grant a release.^[c]

² This is how the release is to be done: Every creditor is to release^[d] what he has loaned to his neighbor. He must not exact it from his neighbor or from his brother Israelite, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. ³ You may exact it from a foreigner, but your hand is to release whatever your brother Israelite owes you.^[e]

⁴ However, there should be no poor people among you, because the Lord will greatly bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance for you to possess, ⁵ if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by carefully carrying out all of this command that I am giving you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you, just as he has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

⁷ However, if there is a poor person among you, any one of your fellow Israelites within the gates of your towns in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your poor brother. ⁸ Rather, open up your hand to him and freely lend him enough of whatever he needs for himself. ⁹ Be careful that you do not harbor this wicked thought: Year seven, the year of release, is near! So as a result you have a harsh attitude toward your poor brother and do not give him anything. Then he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give freely to him, and do not feel resentful about giving to him, because on account of your giving, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and whatever you put your hand to. ¹¹ Since there will never cease to be poor people in the land, I command you, open up your hand to your brother in your land, to the afflicted and the poor among you.

The Release of Servants

¹² If your brother, that is, a Hebrew man or woman, sells himself to you, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year you are to set him free. ¹³ When you set him free, do not send him out empty-handed. ¹⁴ Provide for him generously from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your winepress. Give to him from the blessings that the Lord your God has given to you. ¹⁵ You should remember that you yourself were a slave in the land of Egypt, but the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore I am commanding this procedure to you today.

¹⁶ But he might say to you, “I don’t want to leave you,” because he loves you and your household, and he is well off with you. ¹⁷ In that case you are to take an awl and bore through his ear into the door, and he will be a slave to you permanently. Do the same in the case of your female slave. ¹⁸ When you do set a servant free, it should not seem like a hardship to you, because for six years he has earned for you double the income that a hired worker would. The Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.

The Firstborn

¹⁹ Set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male from your herd and your flock. Do not work the firstborn of your oxen, and do not shear the firstborn of your flock. ²⁰ You and your household are to eat the firstborn in the presence of the Lord each year, in the place that the Lord will choose. ²¹ But if it has a defect (if it is lame or blind, or if it has any other serious defect), you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. ²² You may eat it within the gates of your towns. The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it, as you would a gazelle or a deer. ²³ But you must not eat its blood. You are to pour it out on the ground like water.

The Festivals
The Passover

16 Observe the month of Abib^[f] and keep the Passover for the Lord your God, because it was in the month of Abib that the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt at night.

² As a Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, slaughter an animal from the flock or herd at the place where the Lord will choose to establish his name. ³ Do not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you went out of the land of Egypt in a hurry. Do this so that you may remember the day that you went out from the land of Egypt for all the days of your life.

⁴ No yeast or leaven is to be found among you for seven days, and none of the meat that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day is to be left until morning.

⁵ You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover inside the gates of any of the cities that the Lord your God is giving you. ⁶ Rather, it is at the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name that you are to sacrifice the Passover, in the evening at the setting of the sun, the time of day that you went out of Egypt.

⁷ Cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. In the morning return to your tents.

⁸ Six days you are to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there is to be a special convocation to the Lord your God. Do not do any regular work.

The Festival of Weeks

⁹ Count off seven weeks. As the starting point of the seven weeks, mark the time that the sickle first strikes the standing grain.

¹⁰ Then observe the Festival of Weeks^[g] for the Lord your God and give a voluntary offering of as much as you can afford, in keeping with how much the Lord has blessed you.

¹¹ Rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within the gates of your city, and the alien and the fatherless and the widow who are among you. Do this in the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish his name.

¹² Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, so you are to be careful to carry out these statutes.

The Festival of Shelters

¹³ After you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress, celebrate the Festival of Shelters^[h] for seven days.

¹⁴ Rejoice in your festival, you and your son and your daughter, and your male servant and your female servant, and the alien and the orphan and the widow within your gates.

¹⁵ For seven days celebrate to the Lord your God in the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all of your crops and in all the work of your hands, and you will most certainly be joyful.

¹⁶ Three times a year all of your males are to present themselves before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, at the Festival of Weeks, and at the Festival of Shelters. They are not to present themselves before the Lord empty-handed, ¹⁷ but each person is to have in his hand a gift that is in keeping with the blessing that the Lord your God has given you.

Judges

¹⁸ Appoint judges and officers for your tribes to serve at the gates of all the cities that the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.

¹⁹ Do not distort justice. Do not show partiality. Do not take a bribe, because a bribe blinds the eyes of wise people and twists the actions of righteous people.

²⁰ Justice! You are to pursue justice, so that you may live and possess the land that the Lord your God is giving you!

The Penalty for Idolatry

²¹ Do not set up any kind of wooden Asherah pole beside the altar of the Lord your God that you have made for yourself. ²² Do not set up for yourself a sacred memorial stone, which is something that the Lord your God hates.