(Exodus 27:20–21)

¹ Then the LORD said to Moses,

² “Command the Israelites to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually.

³ Outside the veil of the Testimony¹ in the Tent of Meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps continually before the LORD from evening until morning. This is to be a permanent statute for the generations to come.

1. The Testimony refers to the stone tablets in the ark of the covenant inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

⁴ He shall tend the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the LORD continually.

The Showbread

(Exodus 25:23–30; Exodus 37:10–16)

⁵ You are also to take fine flour and bake twelve loaves, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf,¹

1. Two-tenths of an ephah is approximately 4 dry quarts or 4.4 liters (probably about 5.1 pounds or 2.3 kilograms of flour).

⁶ and set them in two rows—six per row—on the table of pure gold before the LORD.

⁷ And you are to place pure frankincense near each row, so that it may serve as a memorial portion for the bread, an offering made by fire to the LORD.

⁸ Every Sabbath day the bread is to be set out before the LORD on behalf of the Israelites as a permanent covenant.

⁹ It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in a holy place; for it is to him a most holy part of the offerings made by fire to the LORD—his portion forever.”

Punishment for Blasphemy

¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite.

¹¹ The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse. So they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

¹² They placed him in custody until the will of the LORD should be made clear to them.

¹³ Then the LORD said to Moses,

¹⁴ “Take the blasphemer¹ outside the camp, and have all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then have the whole assembly stone him.

1. Literally the one who cursed; also in verse 23

¹⁵ And you are to tell the Israelites, ‘If anyone curses his God, he shall bear the consequences of his sin.

¹⁶ Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD must surely be put to death; the whole assembly must surely stone him, whether he is a foreign resident or native; if he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.

An Eye for an Eye

(Matthew 5:38–48)

¹⁷ And if a man takes the life of anyone else, he must surely be put to death.

¹⁸ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution—life for life.

¹⁹ If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him:

²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.¹ Just as he injured the other person, the same must be inflicted on him.

1. Cited in Matthew 5:38

²¹ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.

²² You are to have the same standard of law for the foreign resident and the native; for I am the LORD your God.’”

²³ Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. So the Israelites did as the LORD had commanded Moses.