Rules About Sacrifices

15 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: I am giving you a land to be your home. When you enter that land, ³ you must give special gifts to the Lord. Their smell will please the Lord. You will use your cattle, sheep, and goats for burnt offerings, sacrifices, special promises, special gifts, fellowship offerings, or at your special festivals.

⁴ “At the time someone brings their offering, they must also give a grain offering to the Lord. The grain offering will be 8 cups^[a] of fine flour mixed with 1 quart^[b] of olive oil. ⁵ Each time you offer a lamb as a burnt offering or sacrifice, you must also prepare a quart of wine as a drink offering.

⁶ “If you are giving a ram, you must also prepare a grain offering. This grain offering should be 16 cups^[c] of fine flour mixed with 1 1/4 quarts^[d] of olive oil. ⁷ And you must prepare 1 1/4 quarts of wine as a drink offering. Its smell will please the Lord.

⁸ “You might prepare a young bull as a burnt offering, a sacrifice, a fellowship offering, or to keep a special promise to the Lord. ⁹ At that time you must also bring a grain offering with the bull. That grain offering should be 24 cups^[e] of fine flour mixed with 2 quarts^[f] of olive oil. ¹⁰ Also bring 2 quarts of wine as a drink offering as a sweet-smelling gift to the Lord. ¹¹ Each bull or ram, or lamb or young goat that you give must be prepared in this way. ¹² Do this for every one of these animals that you give.

¹³ “This is the way every citizen of Israel must give gifts to please the Lord. ¹⁴ Foreigners will live among you. If they give gifts to please the Lord, they must offer them the same way you do. ¹⁵ The same rules will be for everyone—the Israelites and the foreigners living among you. This law will continue forever. You and the people living among you will be the same before the Lord. ¹⁶ This means that you must follow the same laws and the same rules. These laws and rules are for you Israelites and for the other people who are living among you.”

¹⁷ The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁸ “Tell the Israelites this: I am taking you to another land. ¹⁹ When you eat the food that grows in that land, you must give part of that food as an offering to the Lord. ²⁰ You will gather grain and grind it into flour to make dough for bread. You must give the first bread from that flour as a gift to the Lord. It will be like the grain offering that comes from the threshing floor. ²¹ You and all your descendants must give part of the first dough you make from that flour as a gift to the Lord.

²² “As you try to obey all the commands that the Lord gave Moses, you might fail and make a mistake. ²³ The Lord gave you those commands through Moses, and they have been in effect from the day they were given throughout the generations until today. ²⁴ If you made this mistake where everyone could see it, the whole community must offer a young bull as a burnt offering, as a sweet-smelling gift to the Lord. You must also offer the grain offering and the drink offering with the bull. And you must also give a male goat as a sin offering.

²⁵ “So the priest will make the whole community of Israel pure, and they will be forgiven for the mistake they made. Since they made the mistake, they must bring a gift and a sin offering to the Lord. ²⁶ Then the whole community of Israel and any foreigners among them will be forgiven for the mistake.

²⁷ “But if only one person makes a mistake and sins, that person must bring a female goat that is one year old. That goat will be the sin offering. ²⁸ The priest will make purification before the Lord for the one who sinned, and that person will be forgiven. ²⁹ This law is for everyone who makes a mistake and sins. The same law is for the people born in the family of Israel and for the foreigners living among you.

³⁰ “If someone sins and knows they are doing wrong, they are rebelling against the Lord. They must be separated from their people. The same law applies to citizens of Israel and to foreigners living among you. ³¹ They thought the Lord’s word was not important, so they broke his commands. That is why they must be separated from their people—they must bear the responsibility for their guilt.”

A Man Works on the Day of Rest

³² While the Israelites were in the desert, some of them saw a man gathering firewood on the Sabbath day. ³³ The people who saw him gathering the wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole community of Israel. ³⁴ They guarded the man carefully because they did not know how they should punish him.

³⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. All the people must throw stones at him outside the camp.” ³⁶ So the people took him outside the camp and killed him with stones. They did this just as the Lord commanded Moses.

A Way to Remember God’s Commands

³⁷ The Lord said to Moses, ³⁸ “Speak to the Israelites. Tell them this: Tie several pieces of thread together and tie them in the corner of your clothes. Put a piece of blue thread in each one of these tassels. You must wear these things now and forever. ³⁹ You will be able to look at these tassels and remember all the commands that the Lord has given you. Then you will obey the commands. You will not do wrong by forgetting about the commands and doing the things that your own bodies and eyes want. ⁴⁰ You will remember to obey all my commands. Then you will be God’s special people. ⁴¹ I am the Lord your God. I am the one who brought you out of Egypt. I did this to be your God. I am the Lord your God.”

Some Leaders Turn Against Moses

16 Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and On turned against Moses. (Korah was the son of Izhar. Izhar was the son of Kohath, and Kohath was the son of Levi. Dathan and Abiram were brothers, the sons of Eliab. And On was the son of Peleth. Dathan, Abiram, and On were descendants of Reuben.) ² These four men gathered 250 other men from Israel together and came against Moses. They were leaders who had been chosen by the people. All the people knew them. ³ They came as a group to speak against Moses and Aaron and said, “You have gone too far—you are wrong! All the Israelites are holy—the Lord still lives among them. You are making yourselves more important than the rest of the Lord’s people.”

⁴ When Moses heard this, he bowed his face to the ground to show he was not being proud. ⁵ Then Moses said to Korah and all his followers, “Tomorrow morning the Lord will show who belongs to him. He will show who is holy, and he will bring that man near to him. He will choose him and bring that man near to him. ⁶ So Korah, you and all your followers should do this: ⁷ Tomorrow put fire and incense in some special pans. Then bring those pans before the Lord. He will choose the man who is holy. You Levites have gone too far—you are wrong!”

⁸ Moses also said to Korah, “You Levites, listen to me. ⁹ You should be happy that the God of Israel chose you to be different from the rest of the Israelites. He lets you come near to him to do the special work in the Lord’s Holy Tent to help the Israelites worship him. Isn’t that enough? ¹⁰ He brought you Levites near to him to help the priests, but now you are trying to become priests also. ¹¹ You and your followers have joined together and turned against the Lord! Did Aaron do anything wrong? No, so why are you complaining against Aaron?”

¹² Then Moses called Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But the two men said, “We will not come! ¹³ You have brought us out of a land filled with many good things.^[g] You brought us to the desert to kill us. And now you want to show that you have even more power over us. ¹⁴ Why should we follow you? You did not bring us into the new land filled with many good things. You did not give us the land God promised. You did not give us the fields or the vineyards. Will you make these men your slaves? No! We will not come.”

¹⁵ So Moses became very angry. He said to the Lord, “I never did anything wrong to these people. I never took anything from them—not even a donkey! Don’t accept their gifts!”

¹⁶ Then Moses said to Korah, “You and all your followers will stand before the Lord tomorrow. Aaron will also be there with you and your followers. ¹⁷ Each of you must bring a pan, put incense in it, and present it to the Lord. There will be 250 pans for the leaders and one pan for you and one pan for Aaron.”

¹⁸ So each man got a pan and put burning incense in it. Then they stood at the entrance of the Meeting Tent. Moses and Aaron also stood there. ¹⁹ Korah also gathered all the people together at the entrance of the Meeting Tent. Then the Glory of the Lord appeared to everyone there.

²⁰ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ²¹ “Move away from these men! I want to destroy them now!”

²² But Moses and Aaron bowed to the ground and cried out, “God, you know what people are thinking.^[h] Please don’t be angry with all these people. Only one man really sinned.”

²³ Then the Lord said to Moses, ²⁴ “Tell the people to move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”

²⁵ Moses stood and went to Dathan and Abiram. All the elders of Israel followed him. ²⁶ Moses warned the people, “Move away from the tents of these evil men. Don’t touch anything that belongs to them! If you do, you will be destroyed because of their sins.”

²⁷ So the men moved away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram went to their tents. They stood outside of their tents with their wives, children, and little babies.

²⁸ Then Moses said, “I will show you proof that the Lord sent me to do all the things I told you. I will show you that all these things were not my own idea. ²⁹ These men will die, but if they die in a normal way—the way people always die—then that will show that the Lord did not really send me. ³⁰ But if the Lord causes them to die in a different way, then you will know that these men have sinned against the Lord. This is the proof: The earth will open and swallow them. They will go down to their grave still alive. And everything that belongs to these men will go down with them.”

³¹ When Moses finished saying these things, the ground under the men opened. ³² It was as if the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them. All of Korah’s men, their families, and everything they owned went down into the earth. ³³ They went down into their grave alive. Everything they owned went with them. Then the earth closed over them. They were finished—gone from the camp!

³⁴ The Israelites heard the cries of the men being destroyed. So they all ran in different directions and said, “The earth will swallow us too!”

³⁵ Then a fire came from the Lord and destroyed the 250 men who were offering the incense.

³⁶ The Lord said to Moses, ^37-38 “Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to get all the incense pans from the fire. Tell him to scatter the coals and ashes. These men sinned against me, and their sin cost them their lives. But the incense pans are still holy. The pans became holy when people gave them to the Lord. Hammer the pans into flat sheets. Use the metal sheets to cover the altar. This will be a warning to all the Israelites.”

³⁹ So Eleazar the priest gathered together all the bronze pans that the men had brought. These men were all burned up, but the pans were still there. Then Eleazar told some men to hammer the pans into flat metal. Then he put the metal sheets on the altar. ⁴⁰ He did this the way the Lord commanded him through Moses. This was a sign to help the Israelites remember that only someone from the family of Aaron should burn incense before the Lord. Any other person who burns incense before the Lord will die like Korah and his followers.

Aaron Saves the People

⁴¹ The next day all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron. They said, “You killed the Lord’s people.”

⁴² Moses and Aaron were standing at the entrance of the Meeting Tent. The people gathered together at that place to complain against Moses and Aaron. But when they looked toward the Meeting Tent, the cloud covered it and the Glory of the Lord appeared there. ⁴³ Then Moses and Aaron went to the front of the Meeting Tent.

⁴⁴ The Lord said to Moses, ⁴⁵ “Move away from these people so that I can destroy them now.” So Moses and Aaron bowed with their faces to the ground.

⁴⁶ Then Moses said to Aaron, “Get your bronze pan and some fire from the altar. Then put incense in it. Hurry to the people and do the things that will make them pure. The Lord is angry with them. The trouble has already started.”

^47-48 So Aaron got the incense and the fire, and he ran to the middle of the people. But the sickness had already started among them. So Aaron stood between the dead and those who were still alive. He did what Moses said to remove their sin, and the sickness stopped there. ⁴⁹ But 14,700 people died from that sickness—and that is not counting the people who died because of Korah. ⁵⁰ So the terrible sickness was stopped, and Aaron went back to Moses at the entrance of the Meeting Tent.