Keep the lights on
1The LORD told Moses:2Tell the people of Israel to bring you some of the purest olive oil—not from crushed olives, but from olives beaten by hand. [1] Use this oil to light the lamp in the tent worship center. Don't ever let those lights go out.
3Aaron has the responsibility for keeping the light burning. The lamp goes in the main room of the tent worship center, the Sacred Room. Put it outside the curtained entrance into the Most Sacred Room, which holds the box [2] that contains the Ten Commandments. The curtain separates those two rooms. Keep the lights burning. I’m making this a permanent law. 4Aaron should keep the golden lampstands in good working order and burning properly all the time.
Bread seasoned with frankincense
5I want you to bake 12 loaves of bread from a gallon [3] of fine flour. 6Put them on the golden table in the presence of the Lord. Arrange them into two rows—six per row.7Sprinkle pure frankincense [4] onto each of the rows as a reminder that this bread is an offering to the LORD. 8Every Sabbath day Aaron should set the bread out as a gift to the Lord. This bread is a reminder to the people of Israel that the agreement they made with the LORD is permanent. 9This bread is sacred to the LORD, and he is giving it to Aaron and his sons to eat in a sacred place.
Cussing with God’s name
10Two men got into an argument. One was the son of an Israelite woman and her Egyptian husband. He had left his tent and gone into the Israelite camp. There, he got into it with the son of an Israelite woman.11During the argument, the half Egyptian man used God's name to cuss at the Israelite man. People arrested him and took him to Moses. The arrested man's mother belonged to the tribe of Dan. Her name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri. 12Israelites held the man in custody and waited for the LORD to tell them what to do. 13The Lord told Moses:
14Take the man who used my name as a cussword outside the camp. Have everyone who heard him swear put their hands on his head. Then, everyone should pick up stones and stone him to death.
15Tell this to the Israelites: It’s a sin to disgrace God's name by using it to cuss someone out. If you do that, you’ll be punished for it. 16Anyone who demeans and degrades the name of the LORD will be executed. The entire community must stone the person to death. It doesn't matter if the person is a native Israelite or an immigrant living among you. Anyone who demeans the name of the Lord will be executed.
17Anyone who kills another person will be executed. 18Anyone who kills another person’s animal will make restitution and provide a replacement animal. 19If you hurt someone in a way that disfigures that person, you’ll be disfigured in the same way. That will be your punishment. 20I’m talking about bone for bone, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. Whatever you did to disfigure someone else will be done to you. It’s your punishment.
21If you kill someone’s animal, you need to repay the person by providing a replacement. Anyone who kills someone has to be executed. 22You have one standard, one set of laws, and they apply equally to everyone, local Israelites as well as immigrants living among you. I am the LORD your God. 23Moses talked to the Israelites. Then they took the man who swore outside the camp. They stoned him to death, just as the LORD told Moses they should do.
