The sanctuary’s lamp and bread
24 The Lord said to Moses: 2 Command the Israelites to bring pure, pressed olive oil to you for the lamp, to keep a light burning constantly. 3 Aaron will tend the lamp, which will be inside the meeting tent but outside the inner curtain of the covenant document, from evening until morning before the Lord. This is a permanent rule throughout your future generations. 4 Aaron must continually tend the lights on the pure lampstand[a] before the Lord.
5 You will take choice flour and bake twelve loaves of flatbread, two-tenths of an ephah[b] for each loaf. 6 You must place them in two stacks, six in a stack, on the pure table[c] before the Lord. 7 Put pure frankincense on each stack, as a token portion for the bread; it is a food gift for the Lord. 8 Aaron will always set it out before the Lord, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of[d] the Israelites, as a permanent covenant. 9 It will belong to Aaron and his sons. They must eat it in a holy place because it is the most holy part of their share of the Lord’s food gifts, a permanent portion.
Assault and blasphemy
10 The son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father came out among the Israelites. A fight broke out between this half-Israelite[e] and another Israelite man in the camp, 11 during which the half-Israelite blasphemed the Lord’s name and cursed. So he was brought to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, Dibri’s daughter from the tribe of Dan.) 12 He was put under guard until they could determine the Lord’s verdict.
13 Then the Lord said to Moses: 14 Take the one who cursed outside the camp. All who heard him will press their hands on his head. Then the whole community will stone him. 15 Tell the Israelites: Anyone who curses God will be liable to punishment. 16 And anyone who blasphemes the Lord’s name must be executed. The whole community will stone that person. Immigrant and citizen alike: whenever someone blasphemes the Lord’s name, that person will be executed.
17 If anyone kills another person, they must be executed. 18 Someone who kills an animal may make amends for it: a life for a life. 19 If someone injures a fellow citizen, they will suffer the same injury they inflicted: 20 broken bone for broken bone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The same injury the person inflicted on the other will be inflicted on them. 21 Someone who kills an animal must make amends for it, but whoever kills a human being must be executed. 22 There is but one law on this matter for you, immigrant or citizen alike, because I am the Lord your God.
23 Moses told this to the Israelites. So they took the one who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did just as the Lord commanded Moses.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 24:4 Perhaps pure gold lampstand
- Leviticus 24:5 Approximately four quarts dry
- Leviticus 24:6 Perhaps pure gold table
- Leviticus 24:8 Or from or as a gift of; Heb uncertain
- Leviticus 24:10 Or Israelite woman’s son; also in 24:11