Leviticus 24
The full text of Leviticus 24 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 The LORD said to Moses,
2 "Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light, so that the lamps may be kept burning continually.
3 Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the LORD from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.
4 The lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the LORD must be tended continually.
5 "Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf.
6 Arrange them in two stacks, six in each stack, on the table of pure gold before the LORD.
7 By each stack put some pure incense as a memorial portion to represent the bread and to be a food offering presented to the LORD.
8 This bread is to be set out before the LORD regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant.
9 It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the LORD."
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, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.)
12 They put 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 blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him.
15 Say to the Israelites: 'Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible;
16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.
17 "'Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death.
18 Anyone who takes the life of someone's animal must make restitution—life for life.
19 Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner:
20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury.
21 Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death.
22 You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.'"
23 Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the LORD commanded Moses.
Translation notes (3)
- Leviticus 24:11a The phrase "Blasphemed the Name" (vayyiqqov ... ha-shem) uses the Hebrew verb naqav, which can mean either "pronounce/utter" or "curse/revile." "The Name" refers to God's divine name itself, and the exact offense—whether uttering the Tetragrammaton (God's sacred four-letter name) or cursing God—is debated. See the note at 24:16.
- Leviticus 24:16a This verse, which focuses on the divine Name, is translated faithfully without resolving its interpretive disputes; the Hebrew verb naqav (used twice here) can mean "to curse/revile" or "to pronounce/utter," leading ancient interpreters to split between "whoever curses the Name" and "whoever pronounces the Name [the Tetragrammaton itself]." The phrases "the name of the LORD" and "the Name" reproduce the Hebrew shem YHWH and ha-shem. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, reads "names the name of the LORD," reflecting the "pronounce" meaning. The choice between these readings is important for theology and Jewish law and is left for broader study and scholarly review.
- Leviticus 24:20a The phrase "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (known as the law of retaliation) sets a limit of strict proportionality for punishment. Whether this principle was applied literally or as a measure of financial compensation is debated in the Jewish tradition, and this translation preserves the principle without resolving that question.
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