Study Desk

You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest!

"And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins.

All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.

"If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins.

then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins.

I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies.

I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.

then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins.

"And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you.

"But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me.

When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins.

For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.

"But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the Lord their God.

For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord ."

If you desire to make such a vow but cannot afford to pay the required amount, take the person to the priest. He will determine the amount for you to pay based on what you can afford.

You may not exchange or substitute it for another animal—neither a good animal for a bad one nor a bad animal for a good one. But if you do exchange one animal for another, then both the original animal and its substitute will be considered holy.

"If someone dedicates to the Lord a piece of his family property, its value will be assessed according to the amount of seed required to plant it—fifty shekels of silver for a field planted with five bushels of barley seed.

When the field is released in the Year of Jubilee, it will be holy, a field specially set apart for the Lord . It will become the property of the priests.

"You may not dedicate a firstborn animal to the Lord , for the firstborn of your cattle, sheep, and goats already belong to him.

"However, anything specially set apart for the Lord —whether a person, an animal, or family property—must never be sold or bought back. Anything devoted in this way has been set apart as holy, and it belongs to the Lord .