Chapter 22

19:22. And the priest shall pray for him: and for his sin before the Lord: and he shall have mercy on him, and the sin shall be forgiven.

19:23. When you shall be come into the land, and shall have planted in it fruit trees, you shall take away the firstfruits of them. The fruit that comes forth shall be unclean to you: neither shall you eat of them.

Firstfruits... Proeputia, literally, their foreskins; it alludes to circumcision, and signifies that for the first three years the trees were to be as uncircumcised, and their fruit unclean: till in the fourth year their increase was sanctified and given to the Lord, that is, to the priests.

19:24. But in the fourth year, all their fruit shall be sanctified, to the praise of the Lord.

19:25. And in the fifth year you shall eat the fruits thereof, gathering the increase thereof. I am the Lord your God.

19:26. You shall not eat with blood. You shall not divine nor observe dreams.

19:27. Nor shall you cut your hair roundwise: nor shave your beard.

19:28. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead: neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks. I am the Lord.

19:29. Make not thy daughter a common strumpet, lest the land be defiled, and filled with wickedness.

19:30. Keep ye my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

19:31. Go not aside after wizards: neither ask any thing of soothsayers, to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

19:32. Rise up before the hoary head, and honour the person of the aged man: and fear the Lord thy God. I am the Lord.

19:33. If a stranger dwell in your land, and abide among you, do not upbraid hin:

19:34. But let him be among you as one of the same country. And you shall love him as yourselves: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

19:35. Do not any unjust thing in judgment, in rule, in weight, or in measure.

19:36. Let the balance be just and the weights equal, the bushel just, and the sextary equal. I am the Lord your God, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

19:37. Keep all my precepts, and all my judgments: and do them. I am the Lord.

Leviticus Chapter 20

Divers crimes to be punished with death.

20:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

20:2. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: If any man of the children Israel, or of the strangers that dwell in Israel, give of his seed to the idol Moloch, dying let him die. The people of the land shall stone him.

20:3. And I will set my face against him: and I will cut him off from the midst of his people, because he hath given of his seed to Moloch, and hath defiled my sanctuary, and profaned my holy name.

20:4. And if the people of the land neglecting, and as it were little regarding my commandment, let alone the man that hath given of his seed to Moloch, and will not kill him:

20:5. I will set my face against that man, and his kindred, and will cut off both him and all that consented with him, to commit fornication with Moloch, out of the midst of their people.

20:6. The soul that shall go aside after magicians, and soothsayers, and shall commit fornication with them: I will set my face against that soul, and destroy it out of the midst of its people.

20:7. Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy: because I am the Lord your God.

20:8. Keep my precepts, and do them. I am the Lord that sanctify you.

20:9. He that curseth his father, or mother, dying let him die. He hath cursed his father, and mother: let his blood be upon him.

20:10. If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour's wife: let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress.

20:11. If a man lie with his stepmother, and discover the nakedness of his father, let them both be put to death: their blood be upon them.

20:12. If any man lie with his daughter-in-law: let both die, because they have done a heinous crime. Their blood be upon them.

20:13. If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination: let them be put to death. Their blood be upon them.

20:14. If any man after marrying the daughter, marry her mother, he hath done a heinous crime. He shall be burnt alive with them: neither shall so great an abomination remain in the midst of you.

20:15. He that shall copulate with any beast or cattle, dying let him die: the beast also ye shall kill.

The beast also ye shall kill... The killing of the beast was for the greater horror of the crime, and to prevent the remembrance of such abaomination.

20:16. The woman that shall lie under any beast, shall be killed together with the same. Their blood be upon them.

20:17. If any man take his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and see her nakedness, and she behold her brother's shame: they have committed a crime. They shall be slain, in the sight of their people, because they have discovered one another's nakedness. And they shall bear their iniquity.

20:18. If any man lie with a woman in her flowers, and uncover her nakedness, and she open the fountain of her blood: both shall be destroyed out of the midst of their people.

20:19. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy aunt by thy mother, and of thy aunt by thy father. He that doth this, hath uncovered the shame of his own flesh: both shall bear their iniquity.

20:20. If any man lie with the wife of his uncle by the father, or of his uncle by the mother, and uncover the shame of his near akin, both shall bear their sin. They shall die without children.

20:21. He that marrieth his brother's wife, doth an unlawful thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be without children.

20:22. Keep my laws and my judgments, and do them: lest the land into which you are to enter to dwell therein, vomit you also out.

20:23. Walk not after the laws of the nations, which I will cast out before you. For they have done all these things: and therefore I abhorred them.

20:24. But to you I say: Possess their land which I will give you for an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, who have separated you from other people.

20:25. Therefore do you also separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the clean fowl from the unclean. Defile not your souls with beasts, or birds, or any things that move on the earth, and which I have shewn you to be unclean:

20:26. You shall be holy unto me, because I the Lord am holy: and I have separated you from other people, that you should be mine.

20:27. A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die. They shall stone them. Their blood be upon them.

Leviticus Chapter 21

Ordinances relating to the priests.

21:1. The Lord said also to Moses: Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and thou shalt say for them: Let not a priest incur an uncleanness at the death of his citizens.

An uncleanness... Viz., such as was contracted in laying out the dead body, or touching it; or in going into the house, or assisting at the funeral, etc.

21:2. But only for his kin, such as are near in blood: that is to say, for his father and for his mother, and for his son, and for his daughter, for his brother also:

21:3. And for a maiden sister, who hath had no husband.

21:4. But not even for the prince of his people shall he do any thing that may make him unclean.

21:5. Neither shall they shave their head, nor their beard, nor make incisions in their flesh.

21:6. They shall be holy to their God, and shall not profane his name. For they offer the burnt offering of the Lord, and the bread of their God: and therefore they shall be holy.

21:7. They shall not take to wife a harlot or a vile prostitute, nor one that has been put away from her husband: because they are consecrated to their God,

21:8. And offer the loaves of proposition. Let them therefore be holy because I also am holy: the Lord, who sanctify them.

21:9. If the daughter of a priest be taken in whoredom and dishonour the name of her father, she shall be burnt with fire.

21:10. The high priest, that is to say, the priest who is the greatest among his brethren, upon whose head the oil of unction hath been poured; and whose hands have been consecrated for the priesthood; and who hath been vested with the holy vestments. He shall not uncover his head: he shall not rend his garments.

21:11. Nor shall he go in at all to any dead person: not even for his father, or his mother, shall he be defiled.

21:12. Neither shall he go out of the holy places, lest he defile the sanctuary of the Lord: because the oil of the holy unction of his God is upon him. I am the Lord.

21:13. He shall take a virgin unto his wife.

21:14. But a widow or one that is divorced, or defied, or a harlot, he shall not take: but a maid of his own people.

21:15. He shall not mingle the stock of his kindred with the common people of this nation: for I am the Lord who sanctify him.

21:16. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

21:17. Say to Aaron: Whosoever of thy seed throughout their families, hath a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his God.

21:18. Neither shall he approach to minister to him: If he be blind; if he be lame; if he have a little, or a great, or a crooked nose;

21:19. If his foot, or if his hand be broken;

21:20. If he be crookbacked; or blear eyed; or have a pearl in his eye, or a continual scab, or a dry scurf in his body, or a rupture.

21:21. Whosoever of the seed of Aaron the priest hath a blemish: he shall not approach to offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor bread to his God.

21:22. He shall eat nevertheless of the loaves that are offered in the sanctuary.

21:23. Yet so that he enter not within the veil, nor approach to the altar: because he hath a blemish, and he must not defile my sanctuary. I am the Lord who sanctify them.

21:24. Moses, therefore spoke to Aaron, and to his sons and to all Israel, all the things that had been commanded him.

Leviticus Chapter 22

Who may eat the holy things: and what things may be offered.

22:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying:

22:2. Speak to Aaron and to his sons, that they beware of those things that are consecrated of the children of Israel: and defile not the name of the things sanctified to me, which they offer. I am the Lord.

22:3. Say to them and to their posterity: Every man of your race, that approacheth to those things that are consecrated, and which the children of Israel have offered to the Lord, in whom there is uncleanness, shall perish before the Lord. I am the Lord.

Approacheth, etc... This is to give us to understand, with what purity of soul we are to approach to the blessed sacrament of which these meats that had been offered in sacrifice were a figure.

22:4. The man of the seed of Aaron, that is a leper, or that suffereth a running of the seed, shall not eat of those things that are sanctified to me, until he be healed. He that toucheth any thing unclean by occasion of the dead: and he whose seed goeth from him as in generation:

22:5. And he that toucheth a creeping thing, or any unclean thing, the touching of which is defiling:

22:6. Shall be unclean until the evening, and shall not eat those things that are sanctified. But when he hath washed his flesh with water,

22:7. And the sun is down, then being purified, he shall eat of the sanctified things, because it is his meat.

22:8. That which dieth of itself, and that which was taken by a beast, they shall not eat, nor be defiled therewith. I am the Lord.

22:9. Let them keep my precepts, that they may not fall into sin, and die in the sanctuary, when they shall have defiled it. I am the Lord who sanctify them.

22:10. No stranger shall eat of the sanctified things: a sojourner of the priests, or a hired servant, shall not eat of them.

22:11. But he whom the priest hath bought, and he that is his servant, born in his house, these shall eat of them.

22:12. If the daughter of a priest be married to any of the people, she shall not eat of those things that are sanctified nor of the firstfruits.

22:13. But if she be a widow, or divorced, and having no children return to her father's house, she shall eat of her father's meats, as she was wont to do when she was a maid. No stranger hath leave to eat of them.

22:14. He that eateth of the sanctified things through ignorance, shall add the fifth part with that which he ate, and shall give it to the priest into the sanctuary.

22:15. And they shall not profane the sanctified things of the children of Israel, which they offer to the Lord:

22:16. Lest perhaps they bear the iniquity of their trespass, when they shall have eaten the sanctified things. I am the Lord who sanctify them.

22:17. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

22:18. Speak to Aaron, and to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The man of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who dwell with you, that offereth his oblation, either paying his vows, or offering of his own accord, whatsoever it be which he presenteth for a holocaust of the Lord,

22:19. To be offered by you: it shall be a male without blemish of the beeves, or of the sheep, or of the goats.

22:20. If it have a blemish you shall not offer it: neither shall it be acceptable.

22:21. The man that offereth a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, either paying his vows, or offering of his own accord, whether of beeves or of sheep, shall offer it without blemish, that it may be acceptable. There shall be no blemish in it.

22:22. If it be blind, or broken, or have a scar or blisters, or a scab, or a dry scurf: you shall not offer them to the Lord, nor burn any thing of them upon the Lord's altar.

22:23. An ox or a sheep, that hath the ear and the tail cut off, thou mayst offer voluntarily: but a vow may not be paid with them.

22:24. you shall not offer to the Lord any beast that hath the testicles bruised, or crushed, or cut and taken away: neither shall you do any such things in your land.

22:25. you shall not offer bread to your God, from the hand of a stranger, nor any other thing that he would give: because they are all corrupted, and defiled. You shall not receive them.

22:26. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

22:27. When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, they shall be seven days under the udder of their dam: but the eighth day, and thenceforth, they may be offered to the Lord.

22:28. Whether it be a cow, or a sheep, they shall not be sacrificed the same day with their young ones.

22:29. If you immolate a victim for thanksgiving to the Lord, that he may be favourable,

22:30. You shall eat it the same day. There shall not any of it remain until the morning of the next day. I am the Lord.

22:31. Keep my commandments, and do them. I am the Lord.

22:32. Profane not my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctify you:

22:33. And who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. I am the Lord.

Leviticus Chapter 23

Holy days to be kept.

23:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

23:2. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call holy.

23:3. Six days shall ye do work: the seventh day, because it is the rest of the sabbath, shall be called holy. You shall do no work on that day: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your habitations.

23:4. These also are the holy days of the Lord, which you must celebrate in their seasons.

23:5. The first month, the fourteenth day of the month at evening, is the phase of the Lord.

23:6. And the fifteenth day of the same month is the solemnity of the unleavened bread of the Lord. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread.

23:7. The first day shall be most solemn unto you, and holy: you shall do no servile work therein.

23:8. But you shall offer sacrifice in fire to the Lord seven days. And the seventh day shall be more solemn, and more holy: and you shall do no servile work therein.

23:9. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

23:10. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, and shall reap your corn, you shall bring sheaves of ears, the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.

23:11. Who shall lift up the sheaf before the Lord, the next day after the sabbath, that it may be acceptable for you, and shall sanctify it.

23:12. And on the same day that the sheaf is consecrated, a lamb without blemish of the first year shall be killed for a holocaust of the Lord.

23:13. And the libations shall be offered with it: two tenths of flour tempered with oil, for a burnt offering of the Lord, and a most sweet odour. Libations also of wine, the fourth part of a hin.

23:14. You shall not eat either bread, or parched corn, or frumenty or the harvest, until the day that you shall offer thereof to your God. It is a precept for ever throughout your generations, and all your dwellings.

23:15. You shall count therefore from the morrow after the sabbath, wherein you offered the sheaf of firstfruits, seven full weeks.

23:16. Even unto the morrow after the seventh week be expired, that is to say, fifty days: and so you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord.

23:17. Out of all your dwellings, two loaves of the firstfruits, of two tenths of flour leavened, which you shall bake for the firstfruits of the Lord.

23:18. And you shall offer with the loaves seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one calf from the herd, and they shall be for a holocaust with their two rams: and they shall be for a holocaust with their libations for a most sweet odour to the Lord.

23:19. You shall offer also a buck goat for sin, and two lambs of the first year for sacrifices of peace offerings.

23:20. And when the priest hath lifted them up with the loaves of the firstfruits before the Lord, they shall fall to his use.

23:21. And you shall call this day most solemn, and most holy. You shall do no servile work therein. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in all your dwellings and generations.

23:22. And when you reap the corn of your land, you shall not cut it to the very ground: neither shall you gather the ears that remain. But you shall leave them for the poor and for the strangers. I am the Lord your God.

23:23. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

23:24. Say to the children of Israel: The seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall keep a sabbath, a memorial, with the sound of trumpets, and it shall be called holy.

23:25. You shall do no servile work therein, and you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord.

23:26. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

23:27. Upon the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement. It shall be most solemn, and shall be called holy: and you shall await your souls on that day, and shall offer a holocaust to the Lord.

23:28. You shall do no servile work in the time of this day: because it is a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be merciful unto you.

23:29. Every soul that is not afflicted on this day, shall perish from among his people.

23:30. And every soul that shall do any work, the same will I destroy from among his people.

23:31. You shall do no work therefore on that day: it shall be an everlasting ordinance unto you in all your generations, and dwellings.

23:32. It is a sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls beginning on the ninth day of the month. From evening until evening you shall celebrate your sabbaths.

23:33. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

23:34. Say to the children of Israel: From the fifteenth day of this same seventh month, shall be kept the feast of tabernacles, seven days to the Lord.

23:35. The first day shall be called most solemn and most holy: you shall do no servile work therein. And seven days you shall offer holocausts to the Lord.

23:36. The eighth day also shall be most solemn and most holy: and you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. For it is the day of assembly and congregation. You shall do no servile work therein.

23:37. These are the feasts of the Lord which you shall call most solemn and most holy, and shall offer on them oblations to the Lord: holocausts and libations according to the rite of every day.

23:38. Besides the sabbaths of the Lord, and your gifts, and those things that you offer by vow, or which you shall give to the Lord voluntarily.

23:39. So from the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you shall have gathered in all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day and the eighth shall be a sabbath: that is a day of rest.

23:40. And you shall take to you on the first day the fruits of the fairest tree, and branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook: And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God.

23:41. And you shall keep the solemnity thereof seven days in the year. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month shall you celebrate this feast.

23:42. And you shall dwell in bowers seven days. Every one that is of the race of Israel, shall dwell in tabernacles:

23:43. That your posterity may know, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

23:44. And Moses spoke concerning the feasts of the Lord to the children of Israel.

Leviticus Chapter 24

The oil for the lamps. The loaves of proposition. The punishment of blasphemy.

24:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

24:2. Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee the finest and clearest oil of olives, to furnish the lamps continually,

24:3. Without the veil of the testimony in the tabernacle of the covenant. And Aaron shall set them from evening until morning before the Lord, by a perpetual service and rite in your generations.

24:4. They shall be set upon the most pure candlestick before the Lord continually.

24:5. Thou shalt take also fine flour, and shalt bake twelve loaves thereof, two tenths shall be in every loaf.

24:6. And thou shalt set them six and six, one against another, upon the most clean table before the Lord.

24:7. And thou shalt put upon them the clearest frankincense, that the bread may be for a memorial of the oblation of the Lord.

24:8. Every sabbath they shall be changed before the Lord: being received of the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

24:9. And they shall be Aaron's and his sons', that they may eat them in the holy place: because it is most holy of the sacrifices of the Lord by a perpetual right.

24:10. And behold there went out the son of a woman of Israel, whom she had of an Egyptian, among the children of Israel: and fell at words in the camp with a man of Israel.

24:11. And when he had blasphemed the name, and had cursed it, he was brought to Moses. (Now his mother was called Salumith, the daughter of Dabri, of the tribe of Dan.)

24:12. And they put him into prison, till they might know what the Lord would command.

24:13. And the Lord spoke to Moses,

24:14. Saying: Bring forth the blasphemer without the camp: and let them that heard him, put their hands upon his head: and let all the people stone him.

24:15. And thou shalt speak to the children of Israel: The man that curseth his God, shall bear his sin:

24:16. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die. All the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die.

24:17. He that striketh and killeth a man: dying let him die.

24:18. He that killeth a beast, shall make it good that is to say, shall give beast for beast.

24:19. He that giveth a blemish to any of his neighbours: as he hath done, so shall it be done to him: