Study Desk

If any Israelites living near you become poor and cannot support themselves, you must provide for them as you would for a hired worker, so that they can continue to live near you.

They shall stay with you as hired workers and serve you until the next Year of Restoration.

At that time they and their children shall leave you and return to their family and to the property of their ancestors.

The people of Israel are the Lord 's slaves, and he brought them out of Egypt; they must not be sold into slavery.

and you may leave them as an inheritance to your children, whom they must serve as long as they live. But you must not treat any Israelites harshly.

They must consult the one who bought them, and they must count the years from the time they sold themselves until the next Year of Restoration and must set the price for their release on the basis of the wages paid hired workers.

If they are not set free in any of these ways, they and their children must be set free in the next Year of Restoration.

Your harvests will be so plentiful that they will last for a year, and even then you will have to throw away what is left of the old harvest to make room for the new.

I will send dangerous animals among you, and they will kill your children, destroy your livestock, and leave so few of you that your roads will be deserted.

I will cut off your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake all the bread they have. They will ration it out, and when you have eaten it all, you will still be hungry.

and caused me to turn against them and send them into exile in the land of their enemies. At last, when your descendants are humbled and they have paid the penalty for their sin and rebellion,

First, however, the land must be rid of its people, so that it can enjoy its complete rest, and they must pay the full penalty for having rejected my laws and my commands.

But even then, when they are still in the land of their enemies, I will not completely abandon them or destroy them. That would put an end to my covenant with them, and I am the Lord their God.

They were anointed and ordained as priests,

but Nadab and Abihu were killed when they offered unholy fire to the Lord in the Sinai Desert. They had no children, so Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during Aaron's lifetime.

They shall do the work required for the Tent of my presence and perform duties for the priests and for the whole community.

They shall take charge of all the equipment of the Tent and perform the duties for the rest of the Israelites.

"The Levites are now to be mine. When I killed all the first-born of the Egyptians, I consecrated as my own the oldest son of each Israelite family and the first-born of every animal. Now, instead of having the first-born sons of Israel as my own, I have the Levites; they will belong to me. I am the Lord ."

Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, who were the ancestors of the clans that bear their names. Gershon had two sons: Libni and Shimei; Kohath had four sons: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel; and Merari had two sons: Mahli and Mushi. They were the ancestors of the families that bear their names.

the curtains for the court which is around the Tent and the altar, and the curtain for the entrance of the court. They were responsible for all the service connected with these items.