Beginning
26 You must not make idols from stones and worship them. You must not draw things on stones and bend down in front of them. I am the Lord your God.
2 You must rest on Sabbath days and you must keep them holy. You must respect God's house. I am the Lord.
3 The people must carefully obey the rules. 4 If they do, I will send rain at the proper time. Plants for food will grow in the ground. Fruit will grow on your trees. 5 The people will harvest grain until the grapes are ready to eat. They will harvest the grapes until it is the time to plant seeds. They will have all the food to eat that they need. I will keep them safe in their land.
6 I will stop war in Israel. When the people sleep, they will not be afraid. I will take the wild animals away. Other people will not hurt my people. 7 Israel's enemies will run away from them. They will kill their enemies. 8 Five of you will run after 100 of them. And 100 of you will run after 1,000 enemies. You will kill all your enemies.
9 I will do good things for your people and I will give many children to them. Their number will grow. I will do everything that I have promised to do for them. 10 They will have so much food that some will remain after the next harvest. 11 I will have my home among you, my people. I will never turn away from them. 12 I will walk among the people. They will belong to me. 13 I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt. You will not be the slaves of people in Egypt. I saved you so that you need not be ashamed.
People who do not obey the rules will not give any pleasure to the Lord
14 God will be angry if the people do not listen to him. He will be angry if they do not obey his rules. 15 The people may not respect or obey God's rules. So they will not be doing what they promised to him. 16 So God will send diseases to the people. They will be afraid. The people will have diseases in their eyes. They will get thin and they will die. They will plant their seed and their enemies will eat the fruit. 17 God will fight against you. Your enemies will win the war. They will become your rulers. Your soldiers will run away even when nobody is running after them.
18 The people may not obey God even after this. If they do not, God will punish them seven times more strongly. 19 He will make them ashamed. He will not send any rain and the land will be hard and dry. 20 Even if they do a lot of work, no grain will grow. No fruit will grow on the trees.
21 The people may still not listen to God. If they do not, he will be seven times more angry. If they do not obey him, he will cause their lives to be seven times more difficult. 22 He will send wild animals to kill their children and their animals. The land will be almost empty.
23 The people may still not listen to God. If they do not, he will be angry. 24 He will become their enemy. If they do not obey him, he will punish them seven times more strongly. 25 He will send enemy soldiers to kill the people. They have not done what they promised to do. So he will punish them for that. If they go back to their cities, he will send them diseases. The enemy will win the war. 26 The people will not have any food. A woman will bake one loaf for ten families. They will weigh it to give one part to each family. When a person eats his piece of bread, he will still be hungry.
27 If the people still turn away from God, he will be even more angry. They will not turn away from their sin. 28 So he will turn away from them. He will punish them seven times more again. 29 They will be so hungry that they will eat their own children. 30 The Lord will destroy the places where they worship false gods. He will destroy their very bad incense altars. He will put their dead bodies round their idols. He will hate them. 31 He will destroy the cities. He will destroy the places for wrong worship. Nobody will burn incense to give the Lord pleasure. 32 God will destroy the land. He will cause the enemies who live in your land to hate it. 33 God will push you out. He will send your people away to other countries. He will destroy your cities. And he will make your land a desert. 34 The land will have a Sabbath rest while there are no people in it. 35 All the time that it is empty, the land will have rest. It will have the Sabbath rest that it did not have. It did not have it when you lived in it.
36 Some of Israel's people will remain in other countries. They will be frightened. A leaf that is blowing in the wind will cause them to run away. It will be like when an enemy is running after them. They will fall even if no enemy is running after them. 37 They will fall over each other when nobody is running after them. They will not be strong enough to fight their enemies. 38 They will die in the countries where they are living. Those countries will cause their deaths. 39 Those who remain here will die because of their sins. They will die because their ancestors did not obey God.
40 Your sons and your grandsons must tell me, the Lord, that they are sorry. They must be sorry because they did not obey my rules. They must be sorry that they turned away from me. 41 They must remember that they made me angry. They caused me to turn away from them. I am the Lord, and I sent them into their enemies' country. They will be sorry until I have punished them enough. 42 Then I will remember my covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I will remember that I gave their land to them. 43 Before this, the land will be empty and it will have a rest. My people will pay for the bad things that they did. 44 But I, the Lord, will not kill all of them. The people will be living in their enemies' country. Then I will remember them. I will not leave them alone. I will remember my covenant with them. I am the Lord, their God. 45 I will remember my covenant with their ancestors that I brought out of Egypt. The people of other nations saw me do this. I am the Lord.’
46 These are the rules that the Lord gave to Moses on Sinai mountain. They are his covenant with Israel's people.[a]
Rules about gifts to the Lord
27 The Lord said to Moses, 2 ‘Speak to Israel's people. Tell them this. A person might give another person to the Lord for a special promise. 3 They can make that person free. But they must give the right amount of money to God. For a man between 20 years and 60 years old, they must give 50 pieces of silver. 4 For a woman, they must give 30 pieces of silver. 5 For a male between five years and 20 years old, they must give to God 20 pieces of silver. For a female, they must give ten pieces of silver. 6 For a boy between one month and five years old, they must give five pieces of silver. For a girl of the same age, God must have three pieces of silver. 7 If a man is older than 60 years, they must give 15 pieces of silver. For a woman, they must give ten pieces of silver. 8 A person might say this special promise to God. But he might be too poor to pay the money. He must bring the person to the priest. The priest will tell the person how much money to pay. The priest will know how much money the man can give.
9 If the promise is to give an animal to God the animal becomes holy to the Lord. 10 The person must not change a good animal for a bad animal. He must not change a bad animal for a good animal. If the person does change one animal for another, both the animals become holy. 11 The animal might be an animal that you must not eat. And you can not give it to the Lord. If it is, the person must bring it to the priest. 12 The priest will decide if the animal is good or bad. 13 The person might want to buy the animal back. He must pay the price of the animal and one fifth more.
14 A person might give his house to the Lord. The priest will decide if the house is good or bad. The priest will decide the price of the house. 15 The person might want to buy the house back. He must pay the price of the house and one fifth more. Then it will again belong to him.
16 A person might give part of his land to the Lord. The person will decide the price by how much seed the land needs. The price will be 50 pieces of silver for a homer (220 litres) of seed. 17 If a person gives his land in a Jubilee year, the price is the same. 18 A person might give his land after the Jubilee year. The priest will count the number of years before the next Jubilee. The price will be less. 19 A person might want to buy the land back. He must pay the price of the land and one fifth more. 20 He may not buy it back before the year of Jubilee. Then the field becomes holy. But the man may have sold the land to another person. If he has, he cannot get it back. 21 In the Jubilee year the land will become holy. Then it will belong to the priests.
22 A person might buy some land from another family. He might give that land to the Lord. 23 The priest will count how many years there are until the Jubilee year. The person must pay the money on that day. The money is holy to the Lord. 24 In the Jubilee year, the land returns to the family from whom he bought it. 25 The priest must decide the price of the land. He must use the correct measures.
26 The first baby that an animal has is holy. It belongs to the Lord. A person cannot give it as a special gift to the Lord. 27 The animal might be an unclean animal (an animal that they must not eat). The person can pay the price of the animal and one fifth more to get it back. If the person does not buy it back, the priest will sell it.
28 A man might give to the Lord something that the man has. Everything that a man gives like that is holy. It might be a person, an animal or land. The priest must not sell it. A man cannot take it back. Everything that someone gives to the Lord is most holy.
29 God might decide that a person must die. If he does, nobody can buy the person back. The person must die.
30 One tenth of everything that comes from the land is holy to the Lord. It may be grain or fruit. It belongs to the Lord. 31 If a person buys back any of his gift, he must pay the price and one fifth more. 32 Out of every ten animals, one animal is holy. It belongs to the Lord. 33 A person must not change a good animal for a bad animal. A person must not change a bad animal for a good animal. If he does that, both animals are holy. They belong to God. A person cannot buy them back.’
34 These are the rules that the Lord gave to Moses on Sinai mountain. They are the rules for Israel's people.
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