The sanctuary’s lamp and bread

¹The LORD said to Moses:

²Command the Israelites to bring pure, pressed olive oil to you for the lamp, to keep a light burning constantly.

³Aaron will tend the lamp, which will be inside the meeting tent but outside the inner curtain of the covenant document, from evening until morning before the LORD . This is a permanent rule throughout your future generations.

⁴Aaron must continually tend the lights on the pure lampstand before the LORD .[#24.4 Perhaps pure gold lampstand]

⁵You will take choice flour and bake twelve loaves of flatbread, two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf.[#24.5 Approximately four quarts dry]

⁶You must place them in two stacks, six in a stack, on the pure table before the LORD .[#24.6 Perhaps pure gold table]

⁷Put pure frankincense on each stack, as a token portion for the bread; it is a food gift for the LORD .

⁸Aaron will always set it out before the LORD , Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a permanent covenant.[#24.8 Or from or as a gift of ; Heb uncertain]

⁹It will belong to Aaron and his sons. They must eat it in a holy place because it is the most holy part of their share of the LORD ’s food gifts, a permanent portion.

Assault and blasphemy

¹⁰The son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father came out among the Israelites. A fight broke out between this half-Israelite and another Israelite man in the camp,[#24.10 Or Israelite woman’s son ; also in 24:11]

¹¹during which the half-Israelite blasphemed the Lord’s name and cursed. So he was brought to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, Dibri’s daughter from the tribe of Dan.)

¹²He was put under guard until they could determine the LORD ’s verdict.

¹³Then the LORD said to Moses:

¹⁴Take the one who cursed outside the camp. All who heard him will press their hands on his head. Then the whole community will stone him.

¹⁵Tell the Israelites: Anyone who curses God will be liable to punishment.

¹⁶And anyone who blasphemes the LORD ’s name must be executed. The whole community will stone that person. Immigrant and citizen alike: whenever someone blasphemes the Lord’s name, that person will be executed.

¹⁷If anyone kills another person, they must be executed.

¹⁸Someone who kills an animal may make amends for it: a life for a life.

¹⁹If someone injures a fellow citizen, they will suffer the same injury they inflicted:

²⁰broken bone for broken bone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The same injury the person inflicted on the other will be inflicted on them.

²¹Someone who kills an animal must make amends for it, but whoever kills a human being must be executed.

²²There is but one law on this matter for you, immigrant or citizen alike, because I am the LORD your God.

²³Moses told this to the Israelites. So they took the one who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did just as the LORD commanded Moses.