Study Desk

You will be guilty of sin if you do that because you did not respect the holy things that belong to the Lord . If you do that, you will be separated from your people.

"It may happen that a man has sexual relations with a woman who is the slave of another man. But this slave woman has not been bought or given her freedom. If this happens, there must be punishment. But they will not be put to death because the woman was not free.

I will be against them and separate them from their people, because they gave their children to Molech. They showed that they did not respect my holy name. And they made my holy place unclean.

"Be special. Make yourselves holy, because I am the Lord your God.

"If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly time of bleeding, both the woman and the man must be separated from their people. They sinned because they exposed her source of blood.

I am forcing other people to leave that country because they committed all those sins. I hate those sins! So don't live the way those people lived.

I have separated you from other nations to be my own special people. So you must be holy because I am the Lord , and I am holy.

his unmarried sister. (This sister is close to him because she has no husband. So the priest may make himself unclean for her if she dies.)

A priest serves God in a special way. So you must treat him in a special way, because he carries holy things. He brings the holy bread to me, and I am holy. I am the Lord , and I make you holy.

The high priest must not leave God's holy place, because he might become unclean and then make God's holy place unclean. The anointing oil was poured on the high priest's head. This separated him from the rest of the people. I am the Lord .

But he cannot go through the curtain into the Most Holy Place and he cannot go near the altar. This is because he has something wrong with him. He must not make my holy places unholy. I am the Lord , and I make these places holy."

He will be clean only after the sun goes down. Then he can eat the holy food because it is his share.

"Tell Aaron and his sons and all the Israelites: A citizen of Israel or a foreigner might want to bring an offering. It might be because of a promise that person made, or it might just be a special sacrifice that person wanted to give to the Lord as a burnt offering.

These are gifts that the people bring because they really want to give a gift to God. If the gift is a bull, or a sheep, or a goat, the animal must be a male. And it must not have anything wrong with it. You must not accept any offering that has anything wrong with it. I will not accept that gift.

You must not do any work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement. On that day the priests will go before the Lord and perform the ceremony that makes you pure.

That bread will belong to Aaron and his sons. They will eat the bread in a holy place, because that bread is one of the special gifts to the Lord . It is Aaron's share forever."

"The law will be the same for foreigners and for people from your own country. This is because I am the Lord your God."

If someone buys a house from a Levite, that house in the Levites' city will again belong to the Levites at the time of Jubilee. This is because houses in Levite cities belong to those from the tribe of Levi. The Israelites gave these cities to the Levites.

because they are my servants. I brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They must not become slaves again.

"You must count the years from the time they sold themselves to the foreigner up to the next year of Jubilee. Use that number to decide the price, because really the person only ‘hired' them for a few years.