Leviticus 24
The Oil for the Lamps
(Exodus 27:20–21)
¹ Then the LORD said to Moses,
² “Command the Israelites to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually.
³ Outside the veil of the Testimony 1 in the Tent of Meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps continually before the LORD from evening until morning. This is to be a permanent statute for the generations to come.
⁴ He shall tend the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the LORD continually.
The Showbread
(Exodus 25:23–30; Exodus 37:10–16)
⁵ You are also to take fine flour and bake twelve loaves, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf,2
⁶ and set them in two rows—six per row—on the table of pure gold before the LORD.
⁷ And you are to place pure frankincense near each row, so that it may serve as a memorial portion for the bread, a food offering to the LORD.
⁸ Every Sabbath day the bread is to be set out before the LORD on behalf of the Israelites as a permanent covenant.
⁹ It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in a holy place; for it is to him a most holy part of the food offerings to the LORD—his portion forever.”
Punishment for Blasphemy
¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite.
¹¹ The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse. So they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)
¹² They placed him in custody until the will of the LORD should be made clear to them.
¹³ Then the LORD said to Moses,
¹⁴ “Take the blasphemer 3 outside the camp, and have all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then have the whole assembly stone him.
¹⁵ And you are to tell the Israelites, ‘If anyone curses his God, he shall bear the consequences of his sin.
¹⁶ Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD must surely be put to death; the whole assembly must surely stone him, whether he is a foreign resident or native; if he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.
An Eye for an Eye
(Matthew 5:38–48)
¹⁷ And if a man takes the life of anyone else, he must surely be put to death.
¹⁸ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution—life for life.
¹⁹ If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him:
²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.4 Just as he injured the other person, the same must be inflicted on him.
²¹ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.
²² You are to have the same standard of law for the foreign resident and the native; for I am the LORD your God.’”
²³ Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. So the Israelites did as the LORD had commanded Moses.
24:3 The Testimony refers to the stone tablets in the ark of the covenant inscribed with the Ten Commandments. ↩︎
24:5 Two-tenths of an ephah is approximately 4 dry quarts or 4.4 liters (probably about 5.1 pounds or 2.3 kilograms of flour). ↩︎
24:14 Literally the one who cursed; also in verse 23 ↩︎
24:20 Cited in Matthew 5:38 ↩︎