Torah Portion for 07/22/2023

In Leviticus 24:1-23, Yahweh gives instructions to Moses about lighting the lamps and arranging the bread in the tent of appointment. He also lays out the punishment for blaspheming the name of Yahweh, stating that the person who curses God shall be stoned to death. The Israelites follow these commands and stone the person who blasphemed. Leviticus, chapter 24, verses 1-23. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying, Command the children of Israel, that they bring to you clear oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually. Outside the veil of the witness, in the tent of appointment, Aaron is to arrange it from evening until morning before Yahweh continually, a law forever throughout your generations. He is to arrange the lamps on the clean gold lampstand before Yahweh continually. And you shall take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes with it, two-tenths of an ephah in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the clean table before Yahweh. And you shall put clear frankincense on each row, and it shall be on the bread as a remembrance portion, an offering made by fire to Yahweh. On every Sabbath he is to arrange it before Yahweh continually, from the children of Israel, an everlasting covenant. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in the set-apart place, because it is most set-apart to him, from the offerings of Yahweh, made by fire, an everlasting law. And the son of a Yisraeli woman, whose father was a Mitzrayan man, went out among the children of Yisrael. And the Yisraeli woman's son and a man of Yisrael strove in the camp. And the Yisraeli woman's son blasphemed the name, and cursed. So they brought him to Moshe. Now his mother's name was Shalometh, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him under guard, that it might be declared to them at the mouth of Yahweh. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying, Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and all those who heard him shall lay their hands on his head, and all the congregation shall stone him. And speak to the children of Yisrael, anyone who curses his Elohim shall bear his sin, and he who blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall certainly be put to death, and all the congregation certainly shall stone him, the stranger as well as the native. When he blasphemes the name, he is put to death. And a man who strikes the bean of any man shall certainly be put to death. And he who strikes a beast repays it, body for body. And when a man inflicts a blemish upon his neighbor, as he has done so, it is done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he inflicts a blemish upon him, so it is done to him. And he who strikes a beast repays it, and he who strikes a man to death is put to death. You are to have one right ruling, for the stranger and for the native, for I am Yahweh your Elohim. And Moshe spoke to the children of Yisrael, and they brought the one who cursed outside the camp, and stoned him with stones. And the children of Yisrael did as Yahweh commanded Moshe.