Parashat Bechukotai

Faithfulness Ensures Blessings

³ “If you walk in My statutes, keep My mitzvot and carry them out, ⁴ then I will give you rains in their season, the land will yield its crops, and the trees of the field will yield their fruit. ⁵ Your threshing will last until grape gathering, the grape gathering will last until the sowing time, you will eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land.

⁶ “I will bring shalom in the land, and you will lie down, with no one making you afraid. I will remove dangerous beasts from the land and no sword will pass through your land. ⁷ You will chase your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. ⁸ Five of you will chase 100 and 100 of you will chase 10,000, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

⁹ “I will turn toward you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will confirm My covenant with you. ¹⁰ You will eat the old harvest and clear out the old because of the new. ¹¹ I will set My Tabernacle among you, and My soul will not abhor you. ¹² I will walk among you and will be your God, and you will be My people. ^{[a] 13} I am Adonai your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not be their slaves, and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright.

Faithlessness Ensures Misery

¹⁴ “But if you will not listen to Me, nor carry out all these mitzvot, ¹⁵ and if you reject My statutes and if your soul abhors My ordinances, so that you do not keep all My mitzvot, but instead break My covenant, ¹⁶ then I will do the following to you in return. I will appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever that will dim the eyes and cause the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ I will set My face against you and you will be routed before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.

¹⁸ “If you, in spite of these things, will not listen to Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break your pride of power. I will make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰ Also your strength will be spent in vain, for your land will not yield its increase, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

²¹ “if you keep walking contrary to Me and will not listen to Me, then I will multiply the plagues on you seven times like your sins. ²² I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you so few in number that your roads will become deserted.

²³ “Now if in spite of these things you will not be chastened by Me, but walk contrary to Me instead, ²⁴ then I will also walk contrary to you. Then I will strike you, I Myself, seven times for your sins. ²⁵ I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant, and you will be gathered together inside your cities. I will send the pestilence among you and you will be given into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.

²⁷ “Yet if in spite of this you will not listen to Me but walk contrary to Me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. So I will chastise you seven times for your sins. ²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your sons and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places and cut down your altars of incense, cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols, and My soul will abhor you. ³¹ I will lay waste your cities and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell your soothing aromas. ³² I will make the land desolate and your enemies settling there will be astonished at it. ³³ I will scatter you among the nations and I will draw out the sword after you. So your land will become a desolation and your cities will become a waste. ³⁴ Then the land will enjoy its Shabbatot all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of your enemies. Then the land will rest and enjoy its Shabbatot. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it will have rest, that rest which it did not have from your Shabbatot, when you lived on it.

³⁶ “As for those who remain, I will bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from the sword and fall, even when no one is pursuing. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as if before the sword, when no one pursues, and you will have no strength to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations and the land of your enemies will devour you. ³⁹ Those of you who are left in the land of your enemies will rot away because of their iniquity, and because of the iniquities of their fathers they will rot away with them.

Adonai Remembers His Own

⁴⁰ “But if they confess their iniquity and that of their fathers, in the treachery they committed against Me, and how they walked contrary to Me ⁴¹ —in return I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if at that time their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled, so that they accept the punishment for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and also My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. ⁴³ But the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its Shabbatot while it lies desolate without them, and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes.

⁴⁴ “Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I hate them into utter destruction, and break My covenant with them, for I am Adonai their God. ⁴⁵ But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Adonai.”

⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Adonai made between Himself and Bnei-Yisrael at Mount Sinai by Moses.

Divine Appraisals

27 Then Adonai spoke to Moses saying, ² “Speak to Bnei-Yisrael and say to them: When anyone makes a special vow to Adonai involving the valuation of persons, ³ then your valuation of a male from 20 years old to 60 years old should be 50 shekels of silver, after the shekel of the Sanctuary. ⁴ If it is a female, then your valuation should be 30 shekels. ⁵ If the person is from five years to 20 years old, then your valuation is to be 20 shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. ⁶ If the person is from one month to five years old, then your valuation is to be five shekels of silver for a male and three shekels of silver for a female. ⁷ If the person is from 60 years old and upward, if it is a male, then your valuation is to be 15 shekels and for a female ten shekels. ⁸ But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he is to be set before the kohen and the kohen will set a value for him, in keeping with what the one who made the vow can afford.

⁹ “Now if it is an animal that may be brought as an offering to Adonai, anything that one gives to Adonai will be holy. ¹⁰ He is not to replace it or exchange it, either good for bad, or bad for good. But if he does exchanges one animal for another, then both it and the one for which it is exchanged will become holy. ¹¹ If it is any sort of unclean animal that may not be brought as an offering to Adonai, then he is to set that animal before the kohen. ¹² The kohen is to evaluate it, whether it is good or bad. As the kohen values it, so it will be. ¹³ But if he would redeem it, then he is to add a fifth to its valuation.

¹⁴ “If a man consecrates his house as holy to Adonai, then the kohen is to evaluate it, whether it is good or bad. As the kohen evaluates it, so it will stand. ¹⁵ If the one who dedicates it would redeem his own house, then he is to add a fifth of the money of your valuation to it, and it will become his.

¹⁶ “If one consecrates to Adonai part of the field of his possession, then your valuation is to be in proportion to the seed to sow it: an omer of barley at 50 shekels of silver. ¹⁷ If he dedicates his field from the Year of Jubilee, it will stand according to your own valuation. ¹⁸ But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the kohen is to calculate for him the money according to the years that remain until the Year of Jubilee, with a deduction to be made from your valuation. ¹⁹ He who dedicated the field would ever redeem it, then he is to add a fifth of the money of your valuation to it, and it will remain his. ²⁰ But if he will not redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to someone else, it may not be redeemed anymore. ²¹ But the field, when it is released in the Jubilee, will be holy to Adonai as a consecrated field. It will be owned by the kohanim.

²² “Now if one consecrates to Adonai a field that he has bought, which is not from the fields of his possession, ²³ then the kohen is to calculate for him the worth of your valuation up to the Year of Jubilee, and give your valuation on that day as a holy thing to Adonai. ²⁴ In the Year of Jubilee the field is to return to the one from whom it was bought, to the one to whom the possession of the land belongs. ²⁵ All your valuations should be according to the shekel of the Sanctuary, 20 gerahs to the shekel.

²⁶ “But the firstborn among animals, which is made a firstborn to Adonai, may be dedicated by anyone. Whether an ox or sheep, it belongs to Adonai. ²⁷ If it is an unclean animal, then he is to buy it back according to your valuation, and add a fifth of the value to it. But if it is not redeemed, then it is to be sold according to your valuation.

²⁸ “Nevertheless, no devoted thing which a man sets apart from all that he has for Adonai, whether man or animal, or from the field of his possession, may be sold or redeemed. Every devoted thing is most holy to Adonai.

²⁹ “No one who may be set apart from men for destruction is to be ransomed. He is surely to be put to death.

³⁰ “All the tithe of the land whether from the seed of the land, or the fruit of the trees, belongs to Adonai, for it is holy to Adonai. ³¹ If a man redeems anything of his tithe he must add a fifth part to it. ³² From all the tithe of the herds or the flocks, whatever passes under the rod, a tenth will be holy to Adonai. ³³ One is not to inquire if it is good or bad, nor exchange it. Or if he does exchange it, then both it and that for which it is exchanged will become holy, and may not be redeemed.”

³⁴ These are the mitzvot which Adonai commanded Moses for Bnei-Yisrael on Mount Sinai.

Hearts Engraved with Sin

Planted by the Water Without Fear

A Deceitful Heart is Incurable

Invitation to the Wedding Feast

22 Yeshua answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying, ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who made a wedding feast for his son. ³ He sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they wouldn’t come. ⁴ Again he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who were invited, “Look, I’ve prepared my meal. My oxen and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast!”’

⁵ “But paying no attention, they went away, one to his own farm, another to his business. ⁶ And the rest grabbed his servants, humiliated them, and killed them. ⁷ Now the king became furious! Sending his troops, he destroyed those murderers and set fire to their city.

⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. ⁹ So go into the highways and byways, and invite everyone you find to the wedding feast.’ ¹⁰ And those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all they found, both bad and good; and the wedding was filled with guests.

¹¹ “But when the king came in to look over the guests, he saw a man there who wasn’t dressed in wedding clothes. ¹² ‘Friend,’ he said to him, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was silent. ¹³ Then the king said to his servants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen.”