Numbers

Guidelines for Sacrifices

Offerings and Libations

The Lord spoke to Moses and said:

“Tell this to the people of Israel: This is a rule for you when you have entered the land I give to you.

When you make a fragrant offering to the Lord, either as a burnt offering or in payment of a vow, or as a voluntary gift, or on the occasion of one of your solemn feasts, whoever takes from his herds and flocks for a fragrant offering to the Lord

shall also bring, as a gift to the Lord, a grain offering of two pounds of fine flour mixed with two pints of oil.

He shall also make a wine offering, two pints for each lamb, in addition to the burnt offering or sacrifice.

For a man, he shall make a grain offering of four pounds of fine flour mixed with three pints of oil,

and a wine offering of three pints of wine, offering it as a sweet-smelling offering for the Lord.

If he offers a bull as a burnt offering or sacrifice, in payment of a vow or as a peace offering to the Lord,

he shall also offer a grain offering of six pounds of fine flour mixed with four pints of oil,

and a wine offering of four pints of wine, as a burnt offering, sweet-smelling offering to the Lord.

This must be done for every bull, every ram, every lamb or goat.

Whatever the number of victims you have for sacrifice, you must do the same for each of them.

This must be done by every man of your people who makes a burnt offering, as a sweet-smelling offering for the Lord.

If any stranger living among you, or among your descendants, will also make a burnt offering, as a sweet-smelling offering for the Lord: just as you act, so must the stranger do.

There shall be only one law for you and the foreigner among you. This law shall bind your descendants forever before the Lord: you and the stranger are alike.

There is to be the same law and regulation for you and the stranger who lives among you.”

The Lord spoke to Moses and said:

“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you have entered the land to which I am bringing you,

and you eat the bread of this country, you shall set aside a share for the Lord.

You must set aside one loaf as the firstfruits of your grain and set this offering aside like the one from your threshing.

You are to set aside a share of the best of your flour for the Lord, and your descendants are to do the same, from generation to generation.

If, without meaning to do so, you fail in any of these commands that the Lord has given to Moses

and that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, this is what you have to do, you and your descendants.

If it is an unintentional fault of the community, the community must make a burnt offering of a young bull, a sweet-smelling offering for the Lord, with the required offering of flour and wine, and a he-goat must be offered as a sacrifice for sin.

The priest must perform the atonement ceremony for the entire Israelite community. A pardon will be given since it was an unintentional fault, and they have brought their offering as a burnt offering to the Lord, not counting their sacrifice for sin as their unintentional fault.

The entire community of Israel will be forgiven, as will the stranger who lives among them, since the entire people have sinned without meaning to do so.

If it is an individual who has sinned unintentionally, he must offer a one-year-old goat in sacrifice for sin.

The priest shall perform the ceremony of atonement before the Lord over the person who has gone astray by this sin of inadvertence; when the ceremony of atonement has been conducted over him, he will be forgiven,

whether he is an Israelite, or a stranger living among them. There shall be only one law among you for the one who sins by an unintentional fault.

he has rejected the word of the Lord and broken his command. This person must be entirely cut off because of sin.”

Saturday Violation

But the one who sins deliberately, whether native or stranger, angers the Lord. Such a person must be cut off from the community;

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, a man was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

Those who caught him gathering wood brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the whole community.

He was kept under guard because the penalty he should undergo had not yet been decided.

The Lord said to Moses:

“This man must be put to death: the whole community shall stone him outside the camp.”

The whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him till he was dead, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

The Lord spoke to Moses and said:

“Speak to the people of Israel and tell them to put a fringe on the hems of their garments and a violet cord on this fringe.

You must then have a fringe, and the sight of it will remind you of all the commands of the Lord. You are then to put them into practice and no longer follow your heart’s and your eyes’ desires, which would lead you to go astray.

So you will remember all my commandments to put them into practice, and you will be consecrated to your God.

It is I, the Lord your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt so that I may be your God, I, the Lord, your God.”