Beginning

Rules about food

14 You are people who belong to the Lord your God. When someone dies, you are sad. But do not cut your bodies. Do not cut off all the hair from the front of your head.^[a]

² You are the Lord's own special people. He has chosen you to belong to him. You are much more valuable to him than any other people in the whole earth.

³ Do not eat anything that God says is unclean. ⁴ You may eat the meat of these animals: cows, sheep, goats, ⁵ deer, wild goats, mountain goats, antelopes and wild sheep. ⁶ You may eat any animal with feet that have two separate parts. They must also bring their food back into their mouths and eat it again.^[b]

⁷ But you must not eat these animals: camels, wild rabbits and rock badgers. They eat their food a second time, but they do not have feet with two separate parts. For this reason they are unclean food for you. ⁸ You may not eat pigs, either. They have feet in two parts but they do not eat their food a second time. You must not eat any meat from these animals. You must not even touch their dead bodies.

⁹ You may eat any fish that has fins and scales.^{[c] 10} But other things that live in the water do not have fins or scales. Those are not clean food for you. Do not eat them.

¹¹ You may eat any clean bird. ^12-18 But these birds you must not eat: eagles, vultures, kites, owls, hawks, falcons, buzzards, ostriches, seagulls, storks, herons, pelicans, cormorants, hoopoes and bats.^[d]

¹⁹ Some insects have wings but they walk on the ground. Insects like that are unclean food for you. You must not eat them. ²⁰ But you may eat any clean insect that has wings.

²¹ You must not eat anything that you find dead already. You may give it to a foreign person who lives in any of your towns. He may eat it. You may give it to him or sell it to him. But you yourselves are special people who belong to the Lord your God.

You must not cook a young goat in the milk from its mother.

Regular gifts to the Lord

²² You must keep safe a tenth part of all the crops that grow in your fields. You must be careful to do this every year. ²³ Then take your tithe to the place that the Lord your God will choose as his special home. It will be a tenth part of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil and the firstborn animals from your cows, sheep and goats. Eat them there, at the Lord's special home. Then you will learn to respect the Lord your God always.

²⁴ But the Lord's special place may be a long way from your home. If he has blessed you with a lot of things, they may be too heavy for you to carry all that way. ²⁵ If that is true, you may sell your tithe. Then you may take the money carefully to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ²⁶ When you arrive there, you can use the money to buy any food that you choose: cows, sheep, wine, beer or anything else. Then you and your family should eat it there. You should enjoy your time together at the Lord's special home. ²⁷ Do not forget to help the Levites who live in your towns. Remember that they have not received any land as you have.

²⁸ Every third year, take the tithe of the food that you have grown in your fields that year. Store it in your town or your village. ²⁹ Keep this food for the Levites, who have no land of their own. It is also for the foreign people, the widows, and the children who have no family. These people in your town can eat as much as they want. If you do that, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work.

The year to forgive debts

15 At the end of every seven years you must remove the debts of people that you have lent money to. ² This is how you must do it:

Every person who has lent money to someone must remove that debt. He must not demand to get his money back from any other Israelite. It is the Lord's time to remove debts. ³ You can demand to get your money back from a foreign person. But if you have lent money to another Israelite, you must forgive the debt.

⁴ The Lord will bless you in the land that he is giving you to live in. So there should be no poor people among you. ⁵ But you must always obey him completely. So be careful to obey all the commands that I am giving to you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you, as he has promised to do. You will lend money to the people of many other nations, but you will not borrow money from them. You will rule over many other nations, but they will not rule over you.

⁷ The Lord your God will bless you in the land that he is giving to you. But perhaps there will be a poor person among the Israelites in one of your towns. Then do not refuse to help him. Do not think only about yourself. ⁸ Instead, be generous.^[e] Lend him the money that he needs.

⁹ Be careful not to think this wicked thought: ‘The seventh year will happen soon. That is the year when I must forgive people's debts. So I will not lend money to people at this time.’ Do not be cruel like that to another Israelite who is poor. Do not refuse to lend him anything. He might complain about you to the Lord. Then the Lord would say that you are guilty of a sin. ¹⁰ Instead, you should certainly lend money to him. Do not feel upset about it. If you are generous, the Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.

¹¹ There will always be some poor people among you in the land where you are going. So I command you to be generous to other Israelites who are poor. Help them with the things that they need.

Slaves

¹² You may buy another Israelite to be your servant, a man or a woman. Let that servant work for you for six years. Then in the seventh year, you must let him go free. ¹³ When you let him go, you must not send him away with nothing to take with him. ¹⁴ Give him gifts of sheep, grain and wine. Be generous! Give him many good things, as the Lord has blessed you with good things. ¹⁵ Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt. But the Lord your God rescued you from there. This is why I am giving you this command today.

¹⁶ But perhaps your servant will say to you, ‘I do not want to leave you!’ He may say that because he loves you and your family. He enjoys his life with you. ¹⁷ If he says that, you must take a tool with a sharp point. Push it through his ear, into your door. After that, he will be your servant for his whole life. Do the same thing for any female servant who wants to stay with you.

¹⁸ Do not think that it will be difficult for you if he goes free. Remember that he has served you well for six years. He has been worth twice as much as a servant that you pay to do your work. The Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.

The first animals that are born

¹⁹ You must keep separate every firstborn male animal that is born from your cows, sheep or goats. They belong to the Lord your God. Do not make these firstborn animals do any work for you. Do not cut off the wool from your firstborn sheep. ²⁰ Each year, you and your family must take these animals to the place that the Lord your God will choose. Eat them there, at the Lord's special home. ²¹ But if a firstborn animal is not perfect, you must not offer it as a sacrifice to the Lord your God. It must not be blind or have weak legs. It must not have anything wrong with it. ²² You may eat animals like that at home. It is the same as if you are eating meat from deer. Anyone may eat it. That includes people who are clean and people who are unclean. ²³ But you must not eat the animal's blood. You must pour it on the ground like water.

The Passover Festival^[f]

16 The month Abib is a special month for you.^[g] In this month, you must eat a meal to remember the Passover. Remember what the Lord your God did for you. In that month, he brought you out of Egypt during the night. ² You must go to the special place that the Lord will choose for his people to worship him. There you must kill one of your animals as a sacrifice to remember the Passover. You may kill one of your cows or sheep. ³ At this feast, eat bread that you make without any yeast. For seven days, you must eat bread that you make without yeast. You ate that kind of bread when you had much trouble in Egypt. You had to leave Egypt in a hurry that night. You must eat that bread each year. Then you will always remember the day when you left Egypt. ⁴ During those seven days, no one may keep any yeast in their house. There must not be any yeast in the whole land. On the first day, you will kill your animal to eat in the evening. You must eat all the meat that same night, so that there is no meat left in the morning.

⁵ You must not kill the animal for the Passover sacrifice in any of the towns that the Lord your God gives to you. ⁶ You must go to the place that he will choose as his special home. You must kill the animal there, at sunset. That was the time of day when you came out of Egypt. ⁷ Cook the meat and eat it in the place that the Lord your God will choose. The next morning, you may return to your tents. ⁸ For the next six days, you must eat bread that you make without yeast. On the seventh day, you must all come together to worship the Lord your God. You must not do any work on that day.

The Festival of Weeks^[h]

⁹ Count seven weeks from the first day that you bring in crops of grain from your fields. ¹⁰ Then eat the Feast of Weeks to worship the Lord your God. Bring the gifts that you want to offer to him. Bring gifts that show how much he has blessed you. ¹¹ You and your family will be happy to worship the Lord your God, at the special place that he chooses. Enjoy time together with your children, your servants and the Levites who live in your town. Also join with the foreign people who live among you, with widows, and children who have no family. Worship God happily together. ¹² Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt. So be careful to obey these commands.

The Festival of Huts^[i]

¹³ When you have prepared the grain and the grapes from your fields, eat the Feast of Huts for seven days. ¹⁴ Enjoy your feast with your children, your servants and the Levites. Join with the foreign people who live among you, and also with the widows and the children who have no family. ¹⁵ Eat this feast to worship the Lord your God at the special place that he chooses. Do it for seven days. He will bless you in everything that you do, so that you grow plenty of food. So you should all enjoy this feast!

¹⁶ Three times in every year, all your men must go to the place that the Lord your God will choose. They must go there for the Passover festival, the festival of Weeks and the festival of Huts. Each man must bring with him gifts to offer to the Lord. ¹⁷ Give to the Lord as much as you are able to. Your gifts may be large or small, as much as the Lord has blessed you.

Judges

¹⁸ Each tribe must choose judges and officers in every town that the Lord gives you. They must judge the people in a way that is fair. ¹⁹ Judges must do what is right for every person, rich or poor. They must not accept any bribes. A bribe may hide the truth even from a wise man. It can make honest people tell lies. ²⁰ Make sure that there is justice for everyone in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. Then the land will belong to you and you will enjoy life in it.

Do not worship other gods

²¹ When you build an altar to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God, do not put any Asherah pole there. ²² Do not put up any stone pillar as an idol. The Lord your God hates everything like that.^[j]