Regulations for the Sabbath

¹Moses called together the whole community of the people of Israel and said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do:

²You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is to be sacred, a solemn day of rest dedicated to me, the Lord. Anyone who does any work on that day is to be put to death.

³Do not even light a fire in your homes on the Sabbath.”

Offerings for the Sacred Tent

⁴Moses said to all the people of Israel, “This is what the Lord has commanded:

⁵Make an offering to the Lord. Everyone who wishes to do so is to bring an offering of gold, silver, or bronze;

⁶fine linen; blue, purple, and red wool; cloth made of goats' hair;

⁷rams' skin dyed red; fine leather; acacia wood;

⁸oil for the lamps; spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet-smelling incense;

⁹carnelians and other jewels to be set in the High Priest's ephod and in his breastpiece.

Articles for the Tent of the Lord's Presence

¹⁰“All the skilled workers among you are to come and make everything that the Lord commanded:

¹¹the Tent, its covering and its outer covering, its hooks and its frames, its crossbars, its posts, and its bases;

¹²the Covenant Box, its poles, its lid, and the curtain to screen it off;

¹³the table, its poles, and all its equipment; the bread offered to God;

¹⁴the lampstand for the light and its equipment; the lamps with their oil;

¹⁵the altar for burning incense and its poles; the anointing oil; the sweet-smelling incense; the curtain for the entrance of the Tent;

¹⁶the altar on which to burn offerings, with its bronze grating attached, its poles, and all its equipment; the washbasin and its base;

¹⁷the curtains for the enclosure, its posts and bases; the curtain for the entrance of the enclosure;

¹⁸the Tent pegs and ropes for the Tent and the enclosure;

¹⁹and the magnificent garments the priests are to wear when they serve in the Holy Place—the sacred clothes for Aaron the priest and for his sons.”

The People Bring Their Offerings

²⁰All the people of Israel left,

²¹and everyone who wished to do so brought an offering to the Lord for making the Tent of the Lord's presence. They brought everything needed for use in worship and for making the priestly garments.

²²All who wanted to, both men and women, brought decorative pins, earrings, rings, necklaces, and all kinds of gold jewelry and dedicated them to the Lord.

²³Everyone who had fine linen; blue, purple, or red wool; cloth of goats' hair; rams' skin dyed red; or fine leather, brought it.

²⁴All who were able to contribute silver or bronze brought their offering for the Lord, and all who had acacia wood which could be used for any of the work brought it.

²⁵All the skilled women brought fine linen thread and thread of blue, purple, and red wool, which they had made.

²⁶They also made thread of goats' hair.

²⁷The leaders brought carnelians and other jewels to be set in the ephod and the breastpiece

²⁸and spices and oil for the lamps, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet-smelling incense.

²⁹All the people of Israel who wanted to brought their offering to the Lord for the work which he had commanded Moses to do.

Workers to Make the Tent of the Lord's Presence

³⁰Moses said to the Israelites, “The Lord has chosen Bezalel, the son of Uri and grandson of Hur from the tribe of Judah.

³¹God has filled him with his power and given him skill, ability, and understanding for every kind of artistic work,

³²for planning skillful designs and working them in gold, silver, and bronze;

³³for cutting jewels to be set; for carving wood; and for every other kind of artistic work.

³⁴The Lord has given to him and to Oholiab son of Ahisamach, from the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach their crafts to others.

³⁵He has given them skill in all kinds of work done by engravers, designers, and weavers of fine linen; blue, purple, and red wool; and other cloth. They are able to do all kinds of work and are skillful designers.

¹“Bezalel, Oholiab, and all the other workers to whom the Lord has given skill and understanding, who know how to make everything needed to build the sacred Tent, are to make everything just as the Lord has commanded.”

The People Bring Many Gifts

²Moses called Bezalel, Oholiab, and all the other skilled men to whom the Lord had given ability and who were willing to help, and Moses told them to start working.

³They received from him all the offerings which the Israelites had brought for constructing the sacred Tent. But the people of Israel continued to bring Moses their offerings every morning.

⁴Then the skilled men who were doing the work went

⁵and told Moses, “The people are bringing more than is needed for the work which the Lord commanded to be done.”

⁶So Moses sent a command throughout the camp that no one was to make any further contribution for the sacred Tent; so the people did not bring any more.

⁷What had already been brought was more than enough to finish all the work.

Making the Tent of the Lord's Presence

⁸The most skilled men among those doing the work made the Tent of the Lord's presence. They made it out of ten pieces of fine linen woven with blue, purple, and red wool and embroidered with figures of winged creatures.

⁹Each piece was the same size, 14 yards long and 2 yards wide.

¹⁰They sewed five of them together in one set and did the same with the other five.

¹¹They made loops of blue cloth on the edge of the outside piece in each set.

¹²They put fifty loops on the first piece of the first set and fifty loops matching them on the last piece of the second set.

¹³They made fifty gold hooks, with which to join the two sets into one piece.

¹⁴Then they made a cover for the Tent out of eleven pieces of cloth made of goats' hair.

¹⁵They made them all the same size, 15 yards long and 2 yards wide.

¹⁶They sewed five of them together in one set and the other six in another set.

¹⁷They put fifty loops on the edge of the last piece of one set and fifty loops on the edge of the other set.

¹⁸They made fifty bronze hooks to join the two sets, so as to form one cover.

¹⁹They made two more coverings, one of rams' skin dyed red and the other of fine leather, to serve as an outer cover.

²⁰They made upright frames of acacia wood for the Tent.

²¹Each frame was 15 feet tall and 27 inches wide,

²²with two matching projections, so that the frames could be joined together. All the frames had these projections.

²³They made twenty frames for the south side

²⁴and forty silver bases to go under them, two bases under each frame to hold its two projections.

²⁵They made twenty frames for the north side of the Tent

²⁶and forty silver bases, two under each frame.

²⁷For the back of the Tent, on the west, they made six frames

²⁸and two frames for the corners.

²⁹These corner frames were joined at the bottom and connected all the way to the top. The two frames that formed the two corners were made in this way.

³⁰So there were eight frames and sixteen silver bases, two under each frame.

³¹They made fifteen crossbars of acacia wood, five for the frames on one side of the Tent,

³²five for the frames on the other side, and five for the frames on the west end, at the back.

³³The middle crossbar, set halfway up the frames, extended from one end of the Tent to the other.

³⁴They covered the frames with gold and fitted them with gold rings to hold the crossbars, which were also covered with gold.

³⁵They made a curtain of fine linen, woven with blue, purple, and red wool and embroidered it with figures of winged creatures.

³⁶They made four posts of acacia wood to hold the curtain, covered them with gold, and fitted them with gold hooks. Then they made four silver bases to hold the posts.

³⁷For the entrance of the Tent they made a curtain of fine linen woven with blue, purple, and red wool and decorated with embroidery.

³⁸For this curtain they made five posts fitted with hooks, covered their tops and their rods with gold, and made five bronze bases for the posts.

The Seventh Year

¹The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and commanded him

²to give the following regulations to the people of Israel. When you enter the land that the Lord is giving you, you shall honor the Lord by not cultivating the land every seventh year.

³You shall plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and gather your crops for six years.

⁴But the seventh year is to be a year of complete rest for the land, a year dedicated to the Lord. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards.

⁵Do not even harvest the grain that grows by itself without being planted, and do not gather the grapes from your unpruned vines; it is a year of complete rest for the land.

⁶Although the land has not been cultivated during that year, it will provide food for you, your slaves, your hired men, the foreigners living with you,

⁷your domestic animals, and the wild animals in your fields. Everything that it produces may be eaten.

The Year of Restoration

⁸Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years.

⁹Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land.

¹⁰In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families.

¹¹You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards.

¹²The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.

¹³In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner.

¹⁴So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly.

¹⁵The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration.

¹⁶If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce.

¹⁷Do not cheat an Israelite, but obey the Lord your God.

The Problem of the Seventh Year

¹⁸Obey all the Lord's laws and commands, so that you may live in safety in the land.

¹⁹The land will produce its crops, and you will have all you want to eat and will live in safety.

²⁰But someone may ask what there will be to eat during the seventh year, when no fields are planted and no crops gathered.

²¹The Lord will bless the land in the sixth year so that it will produce enough food for two years.

²²When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating what you harvested during the sixth year, and you will have enough to eat until the crops you plant that year are harvested.

Restoration of Property

²³Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it.

²⁴When land is sold, the right of the original owner to buy it back must be recognized.

²⁵If any of you Israelites become poor and are forced to sell your land, your closest relative is to buy it back.

²⁶If you have no relative to buy it back, you may later become prosperous and have enough to buy it back yourself.

²⁷In that case you must pay to the one who bought it a sum that will make up for the years remaining until the next Year of Restoration, when you would in any event recover your land.

²⁸But if you do not have enough money to buy the land back, it remains under the control of the one who bought it until the next Year of Restoration. In that year it will be returned to its original owner.

²⁹If you sell a house in a walled city, you have the right to buy it back during the first full year from the date of sale.

³⁰But if you do not buy it back within the year, you lose the right of repurchase, and the house becomes the permanent property of the purchasers and their descendants; it will not be returned in the Year of Restoration.

³¹But houses in unwalled villages are to be treated like fields; the original owner has the right to buy them back, and they are to be returned in the Year of Restoration.

³²However, Levites have the right to buy back at any time their property in the cities assigned to them.

³³If a house in one of these cities is sold by a Levite and is not bought back, it must be returned in the Year of Restoration, because the houses which the Levites own in their cities are their permanent property among the people of Israel.

³⁴But the pasture land around the Levite cities shall never be sold; it is their property forever.

Loans to the Poor

³⁵If 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.

³⁶Do not charge Israelites any interest, but obey God and let them live near you.

³⁷Do not make them pay interest on the money you lend them, and do not make a profit on the food you sell them.

³⁸This is the command of the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt in order to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

Release of Slaves

³⁹If any Israelites living near you become so poor that they sell themselves to you as a slave, you shall not make them do the work of a slave.

⁴⁰They shall stay with you as hired workers and serve you until the next Year of Restoration.

⁴¹At that time they and their children shall leave you and return to their family and to the property of their ancestors.

⁴²The people of Israel are the Lord's slaves, and he brought them out of Egypt; they must not be sold into slavery.

⁴³Do not treat them harshly, but obey your God.

⁴⁴If you need slaves, you may buy them from the nations around you.

⁴⁵You may also buy the children of the foreigners who are living among you. Such children born in your land may become your property,

⁴⁶and 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.

⁴⁷Suppose a foreigner living with you becomes rich, while some Israelites become poor and sell themselves as slaves to that foreigner or to a member of that foreigner's family.

⁴⁸After they are sold, they still have the right to be bought back. A brother

⁴⁹or an uncle or a cousin or another close relative may buy them back; or if they themselves earn enough, they may buy their own freedom.

⁵⁰They 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.

^51-52They must refund a part of the purchase price according to the number of years left,

⁵³as if they had been hired on an annual basis. Their master must not treat them harshly.

⁵⁴If they are not set free in any of these ways, they and their children must be set free in the next Year of Restoration.

⁵⁵Israelites cannot be permanent slaves, because the people of Israel are the Lord's slaves. He brought them out of Egypt; he is the Lord their God.

God the Supreme Ruler

¹God presides in the heavenly council; in the assembly of the gods he gives his decision:

²“You must stop judging unjustly; you must no longer be partial to the wicked!

³Defend the rights of the poor and the orphans; be fair to the needy and the helpless.

⁴Rescue them from the power of evil people.

⁵“How ignorant you are! How stupid! You are completely corrupt, and justice has disappeared from the world.

⁶‘You are gods,’ I said; ‘all of you are children of the Most High.’

⁷But you will die like mortals; your life will end like that of any prince.”

⁸Come, O God, and rule the world; all the nations are yours.