Numbers 15:26-36

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."

32 While the Israelites were in the desert, they found a man gathering wood on the day of worship.

33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole community.

34 They kept him in custody until they decided what to do with him.

35 Then the LORD said to Moses, "This man must be put to death. The whole community must take him outside the camp and stone him."

36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.

Numbers 15:26-36 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.