Numbers 15:21-31

21 For generations to come, you must give one part of your dough as a contribution to the LORD.

22 "Suppose you unintentionally do something wrong by not obeying all these commands the LORD gave Moses.

23 (Everything the LORD commanded you through Moses holds as true for generations to come as it did the day the LORD gave the commands.)

24 If it was unintentional and no one else knows about it, the whole community must sacrifice a young bull as a burnt offering, a soothing aroma to the LORD, along with the proper grain and wine offerings, and a male goat as an offering for sin.

25 The priest will make peace with the LORD for the whole community of Israel. Then they will be forgiven because the wrongdoing was unintentional and they brought these two offerings to the LORD for their sin: an offering by fire and an offering for sin.

26 So the whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including foreigners who are living among them, since all the people were involved in the unintentional wrongdoing.

27 "If one person unintentionally does something wrong, a one-year-old female goat must be sacrificed as an offering for sin.

28 The priest will offer the sacrifice to make peace with the LORD for that person, and that person will be forgiven.

29 You must give the same instructions to everyone who does something wrong unintentionally, whether they are native-born Israelites or not.

30 "But any native-born Israelite or foreigner who deliberately does something wrong insults the LORD and must be excluded from the people.

31 That person has despised the word of the LORD and broken the LORD's command. He must be excluded completely. He remains guilty."

Numbers 15:21-31 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 15

In this chapter the children of Israel are instructed about the meat offerings and drink offerings, and the quantities of them, which were always to go along with their burnt offerings and peace offerings they should offer when they came into the land of Canaan, Nu 15:1-12; and they are told that the same laws and ordinances would be binding equally on them that were of the country, and on the strangers in it, Nu 15:13-16; and an order is given them to offer a cake of the first dough for an heave offering, Nu 15:17-21; and they are directed what sacrifices to offer for sins of ignorance, both of the congregation and particular persons, Nu 14:22-29; but as for presumptuous sinners, they were to be cut off, Nu 14:30,31; and an instance is recorded of stoning a sabbath breaker, Nu 14:32-36; and the chapter is concluded with a law for wearing fringes on the borders of their garments, the use of which is expressed, Nu 14:35-41.