The Lamps

24 ^(A)The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. ³ Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴ He shall arrange the lamps on the ^(B)lampstand of pure gold^[a] before the Lord regularly.

Bread for the Tabernacle

⁵ “You shall take fine flour and bake twelve ^(C)loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah^[b] shall be in each loaf. ⁶ And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, ^(D)on the table of pure gold^[c] before the Lord. ⁷ And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. ^8 (E)Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. ⁹ And ^(F)it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and ^(G)they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual due.”

Punishment for Blasphemy

¹⁰ Now an Israelite woman's son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, ¹¹ and the Israelite woman's son ^(H)blasphemed the ^(I)Name, and cursed. Then they ^(J)brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. ¹² And ^(K)they put him in custody, ^(L)till the will of the Lord should be clear to them.

¹³ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ^14 (M)“Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him ^(N)lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. ¹⁵ And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall ^(O)bear his sin. ¹⁶ Whoever ^(P)blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

An Eye for an Eye

^17 (Q)“Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. ^18 (R)Whoever takes an animal's life shall make it good, life for life. ¹⁹ If anyone injures his neighbor, ^(S)as he has done it shall be done to him, ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. ^21 (T)Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, ^(U)and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. ²² You shall have the ^(V)same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.” ²³ So Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and ^(W)they brought out of the camp the one who had cursed and stoned him with stones. Thus the people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses.

The Sabbath Year

25 ^(X)The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into ^(Y)the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. ³ For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ^5 (Z)You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ⁶ The Sabbath of the land^[d] shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves^[e] and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, ⁷ and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: ^(AA)all its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸ “You shall count seven weeks^[f] of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall sound ^(AB)the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. ^(AC)On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. ¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^(AD)proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of ^(AE)you shall return to his clan. ¹¹ That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it ^(AF)you shall neither sow nor reap ^(AG)what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. ^(AH)You may eat the produce of the field.^[g]

^13 (AI)“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. ¹⁴ And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, ^(AJ)you shall not wrong one another. ^15 (AK)You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. ¹⁶ If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. ^17 (AL)You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

^18 (AM)“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then ^(AN)you will dwell in the land securely. ^19 (AO)The land will yield its fruit, and ^(AP)you will eat your fill ^(AQ)and dwell in it securely. ²⁰ And if you say, ^(AR)‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if ^(AS)we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ ²¹ I will ^(AT)command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. ^22 (AU)When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of ^(AV)the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.

Redemption of Property

²³ “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for ^(AW)the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. ²⁴ And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

²⁵ “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, ^(AX)then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶ If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, ²⁷ let ^(AY)him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. ²⁸ But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall ^(AZ)be released, and ^(BA)he shall return to his property.

²⁹ “If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. ³⁰ If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; ^(BB)it shall not be released in the jubilee. ³¹ But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and ^(BC)they shall be released in the jubilee. ³² As for ^(BD)the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. ³³ And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. ³⁴ But the fields ^(BE)of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.

Kindness for Poor Brothers

³⁵ “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, ^(BF)you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. ^36 (BG)Take no interest from him or profit, but ^(BH)fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. ^37 (BI)You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. ^38 (BJ)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

^39 (BK)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰ he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ^41 (BL)Then he shall go out from you, ^(BM)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(BN)to the possession of his fathers. ⁴² For they are ^(BO)my servants,^[h] whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ^43 (BP)You shall not rule over him ^(BQ)ruthlessly but ^(BR)shall fear your God. ⁴⁴ As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ^45 (BS)You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶ You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel ^(BT)you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Let the Children Come to Me

^13 (A)And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples ^(B)rebuked them. ¹⁴ But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, ^(C)“Let the children come to me; ^(D)do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. ^15 (E)Truly, I say to you, whoever does not ^(F)receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” ¹⁶ And ^(G)he took them in his arms and blessed them, ^(H)laying his hands on them.

The Rich Young Man

^17 (I)And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and ^(J)knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to ^(K)inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸ And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ^(L)‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰ And he said to him, “Teacher, ^(M)all these I have kept from my youth.” ²¹ And Jesus, ^(N)looking at him, ^(O)loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, ^(P)sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have ^(Q)treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” ^22 (R)Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

²³ And Jesus ^(S)looked around and said to his disciples, ^(T)“How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter ^(U)the kingdom of God!” ²⁴ And the disciples ^(V)were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, ^(W)“Children, ^(X)how difficult it is^[a] to enter ^(Y)the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter ^(Z)the kingdom of God.” ²⁶ And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him,^[b] “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷ Jesus ^(AA)looked at them and said, ^(AB)“With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” ²⁸ Peter began to say to him, “See, ^(AC)we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹ Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, ^(AD)there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and ^(AE)for the gospel, ³⁰ who will not receive a hundredfold ^(AF)now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, ^(AG)with persecutions, and in ^(AH)the age to come eternal life. ³¹ But ^(AI)many who are first will be last, and the last first.”