Add parallel Print Page Options

Where To Offer Sacrifices

17 The Lord told Moses to tell Aaron, his sons, and everyone else in Israel:

3-4 Whenever you kill any of your cattle, sheep, or goats as sacrifices to me, you must do it at the entrance to the sacred tent. If you don't, you will be guilty of pouring out blood, and you will no longer belong to the community of Israel. And so, when you sacrifice an animal to ask my blessing,[a] it must not be done out in a field, but in front of the sacred tent. Then a priest can splatter its blood against the bronze altar and send its fat up in smoke with a smell that pleases me. Don't ever turn from me again and offer sacrifices to goat-demons. This law will never change.

Remember! No one in Israel, including foreigners, is to offer a sacrifice anywhere except at the entrance to the sacred tent. If you do, you will no longer belong to my people.

Do Not Eat Blood

The Lord said:

10 (A) I will turn against any of my people who eat blood. This also includes any foreigners living among you. 11 (B) Life is in the blood, and I have given you the blood of animals to sacrifice in place of your own. 12 That's also why I have forbidden you to eat blood. 13 Even if you should hunt and kill a bird or an animal, you must drain out the blood and cover it with soil.

14 The life of every living creature is in its blood. That's why I have forbidden you to eat blood and why I have warned you that anyone who does will no longer belong to my people.

15 If you happen to find a dead animal and eat it, you must take a bath and wash your clothes, but you are still unclean until evening. 16 If you don't take a bath, you will suffer for what you did wrong.

Forbidden Sex

18 The Lord told Moses to tell the people of Israel:

I am the Lord your God! So don't follow the customs of Egypt where you used to live or those of Canaan where I am bringing you. I am the Lord your God, and you must obey my teachings. (C) Obey them and you will live. I am the Lord.

Don't have sex with any of your close relatives, especially your own mother. This would disgrace your father. (D) And don't disgrace him by having sex with any of his other wives. (E) Don't have sex with your sister or stepsister, whether you grew up together or not. 10 Don't disgrace yourself by having sex with your granddaughter 11 or half sister 12-13 (F) or a sister of your father or mother. 14 Don't disgrace your uncle by having sex with his wife. 15 (G) Don't have sex with your daughter-in-law 16 (H) or sister-in-law. 17 (I) And don't have sex with the daughter or granddaughter of any woman that you have earlier had sex with. You will be having sex with her closest relatives, and that would make you unclean. 18 As long as your wife is alive, don't cause trouble for her by taking one of her sisters as a second wife.

19 (J) When a woman is having her monthly period, she is unclean, so don't have sex with her.

20 (K) Don't have sex with another man's wife—that would make you unclean.

21 (L) Don't sacrifice your children on the altar fires to the god Molech. I am the Lord your God, and that would disgrace me.

22 (M) It is disgusting for a man to have sex with another man.

23 (N) Anyone who has sex with an animal is unclean.

24 Don't make yourselves unclean by any of these disgusting practices of those nations that I am forcing out of the land for you. They made themselves 25 and the land so unclean, that I punished the land because of their sins, and I made it vomit them up. 26-27 Now don't do these sickening things that make the land filthy. Instead, obey my laws and teachings. 28 Then the land won't become sick of you and vomit you up, just as it did them. 29-30 If any of you do these vulgar, disgusting things, you will be unclean and no longer belong to my people. I am the Lord your God, and I forbid you to follow their sickening way of life.

Moral and Religious Laws

19 The Lord told Moses (O) to say to the community of Israel:

I am the Lord your God. I am holy, and you must be holy too! 3-4 (P) Respect your father and your mother, honor the Sabbath, and don't make idols or images. I am the Lord your God.

When you offer a sacrifice to ask my blessing,[b] be sure to follow my instructions. You may eat the meat either on the day of the sacrifice or on the next day, but you must burn anything left over on the third day. If you eat any of it on the third day, the sacrifice will be disgusting to me, and I will reject it. In fact, you will be punished for not respecting what I say is holy, and you will no longer belong to the community of Israel.

(Q) When you harvest your grain, always leave some of it standing along the edges of your fields and don't pick up what falls on the ground. 10 Don't strip your grapevines clean or gather the grapes that fall off the vines. Leave them for the poor and for those foreigners who live among you. I am the Lord your God.

11 (R) Do not steal or tell lies or cheat others.

12 (S) Do not misuse my name by making promises you don't intend to keep. I am the Lord your God.

13 (T) Do not steal anything or cheat anyone, and don't fail to pay your workers at the end of each day.[c]

14 (U) I am the Lord your God, and I command you not to make fun of the deaf or to cause a blind person to stumble.

15 (V) Be fair, no matter who is on trial—don't favor either the poor or the rich.

16 Don't be a gossip, but never hesitate to speak up in court, especially if your testimony can save someone's life.[d]

17 (W) Don't hold grudges. On the other hand, it's wrong not to correct someone who needs correcting. 18 (X) Don't be angry or try to take revenge. I am the Lord, and I command you to love others as much as you love yourself.

19 (Y) Breed your livestock animals only with animals of the same kind, and don't plant two kinds of seed in the same field or wear clothes made of different kinds of material.

20 If a man has sex with a slave woman who is promised in marriage to someone else, he must pay a fine, but they are not to be put to death. After all, she was still a slave at the time.[e] 21-22 The man must bring a ram to the entrance of the sacred tent and give it to a priest, who will then offer it as a sacrifice to me, so the man's sins will be forgiven.

23 After you enter the land, you will plant fruit trees, but you are not to eat any fruit from them for the first three years. 24 In the fourth year the fruit must be set apart, as an expression of thanks 25 to me, the Lord God. Do this, and in the fifth year, those trees will produce an abundant harvest of fruit for you to eat.

26 (Z) Don't eat the blood of any animal.

Don't practice any kind of witchcraft.

27-28 (AA) I forbid you to shave any part of your head or beard or to cut and tattoo yourself as a way of worshiping the dead.

29 (AB) Don't let your daughters serve as temple prostitutes—this would bring disgrace both to them and the land.

30 (AC) I command you to respect the Sabbath and the place where I am worshiped.

31 (AD) Don't make yourselves disgusting to me by going to people who claim they can talk to the dead.

32 I command you to show respect for older people and to obey me with fear and trembling.

33 (AE) Don't mistreat any foreigners who live in your land. 34 Instead, treat them as well as you treat your own people and love them as much as you love yourself. Remember, you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

35-36 (AF) Use honest scales and don't cheat when you weigh or measure anything.

I am the Lord your God. I rescued you from Egypt, 37 and I command you to obey my laws.

Footnotes

  1. 17.5 sacrifice … to ask my blessing: See the note at 3.1.
  2. 19.5 sacrifice … to ask my blessing: See the note at 3.1.
  3. 19.13 to pay … end of each day: Day laborers needed their wages to buy food for their evening meal, which was the main meal of the day.
  4. 19.16 but never … someone's life: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
  5. 19.20 time: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text of verse 20.

Bible Gateway Recommends