« | Numbers 15 | » |
1 Then the LORD told Moses,
2 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel."When you finally settle in the land I am giving you,
3 you will offer special gifts as a pleasing aroma to the LORD. These gifts may take the form of a burnt offering, a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, a voluntary offering, or an offering at any of your annual festivals, and they may be taken from your herds of cattle or your flocks of sheep and goats.
4 When you present these offerings, you must also give the LORD a grain offering of two quarts of choice flour mixed with one quart of olive oil.
5 For each lamb offered as a burnt offering or a special sacrifice, you must also present one quart of wine as a liquid offering.
6 "If the sacrifice is a ram, give a grain offering of four quarts of choice flour mixed with a third of a gallon of olive oil,
7 and give a third of a gallon of wine as a liquid offering. This will be a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
8 "When you present a young bull as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice to fulfill a vow or as a peace offering to the LORD,
9 you must also give a grain offering of six quarts of choice flour mixed with two quarts of olive oil,
10 and give two quarts of wine as a liquid offering. This will be a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
11 "Each sacrifice of a bull, ram, lamb, or young goat should be prepared in this way.
12 Follow these instructions with each offering you present.
13 All of you native-born Israelites must follow these instructions when you offer a special gift as a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
14 And if any foreigners visit you or live among you and want to present a special gift as a pleasing aroma to the LORD, they must follow these same procedures.
15 Native-born Israelites and foreigners are equal before the LORD and are subject to the same decrees. This is a permanent law for you, to be observed from generation to generation.
16 The same instructions and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigners living among you."
17 Then the LORD said to Moses,
18 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel."When you arrive in the land where I am taking you,
19 and you eat the crops that grow there, you must set some aside as a sacred offering to the LORD.
20 Present a cake from the first of the flour you grind, and set it aside as a sacred offering, as you do with the first grain from the threshing floor.
21 Throughout the generations to come, you are to present a sacred offering to the LORD each year from the first of your ground flour.
22 "But suppose you unintentionally fail to carry out all these commands that the LORD has given you through Moses.
23 And suppose your descendants in the future fail to do everything the LORD has commanded through Moses.
24 If the mistake was made unintentionally, and the community was unaware of it, the whole community must present a young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the LORD. It must be offered along with its prescribed grain offering and liquid offering and with one male goat for a sin offering.
25 With it the priest will purify the whole community of Israel, making them right with the LORD, and they will be forgiven. For it was an unintentional sin, and they have corrected it with their offerings to the LORD-- the special gift and the sin offering.
26 The whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including the foreigners living among you, for all the people were involved in the sin.
27 "If one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering.
28 The priest will sacrifice it to purify the guilty person before the LORD, and that person will be forgiven.
29 These same instructions apply both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you.
30 "But those who brazenly violate the LORD's will, whether native-born Israelites or foreigners, have blasphemed the LORD, and they must be cut off from the community.
31 Since they have treated the LORD's word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt."
32 One day while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they discovered a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.
33 The people who found him doing this took him before Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the community.
34 They held him in custody because they did not know what to do with him.
35 Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must be put to death! The whole community must stone him outside the camp."
36 So the whole community took the man outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
37 Then the LORD said to Moses,
38 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord.
39 When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the LORD instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do.
40 The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God.
41 I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the LORD your God!"
The New Living Translation (NLT)
The New Living Translation (NLT) is a modern English translation of the Bible that aims to make the Scriptures accessible and engaging for contemporary readers. First published in 1996 by Tyndale House Publishers, the NLT was conceived as an effort to create a translation that combines both accuracy and readability. Unlike many other translations that focus on a word-for-word rendering of the original texts, the NLT employs a thought-for-thought translation philosophy, also known as dynamic equivalence. This approach prioritizes conveying the meaning and message of the original texts in a way that is natural and understandable in modern English.
One of the defining features of the NLT is its commitment to clarity and simplicity. The translators, a team of over 90 evangelical scholars, aimed to create a text that would be approachable for a wide audience, including those who may find traditional translations challenging to read. The NLT’s language is contemporary and conversational, making it particularly effective for public reading, teaching, and personal study. This emphasis on readability helps ensure that the profound messages of the Bible are easily grasped and retained by readers from various backgrounds and levels of biblical knowledge.
The NLT also incorporates a rich array of study aids designed to enhance the reader’s understanding of the biblical text. These include book introductions, footnotes, cross-references, and explanatory notes that provide historical, cultural, and theological context. These features are particularly useful for readers who seek a deeper comprehension of the Scriptures and their application to modern life. The translation also includes clear and concise headings that help guide readers through the narrative and thematic structure of each book, making it easier to follow and comprehend the overall message.
Despite its many strengths, the New Living Translation has faced some criticism, particularly from those who favor more literal translations. Critics argue that the dynamic equivalence approach, while making the text more readable, can sometimes result in a loss of the precise nuances and literary qualities of the original languages. Some scholars believe that certain theological concepts might be oversimplified in the process of making the text more accessible. Nevertheless, the NLT remains one of the most popular and widely used translations today, valued for its readability, clarity, and ability to convey the timeless truths of the Bible in a way that resonates with contemporary readers.