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Laws About Vows

¹ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone ^(a)makes a special vow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons, ³ then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels^[a] of silver, according to the ^(b)shekel of the sanctuary. ⁴ If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels. ⁵ If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. ⁶ If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver. ⁷ And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. ⁸ And if someone is too poor to pay the valuation, then he shall be made to stand before the priest, and the priest shall value him; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.

⁹ "If the vow^[b] is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the Lord, all of it that he gives to the Lord is holy. ^10 (c)He shall not exchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy. ¹¹ And if it is any unclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand the animal before the priest, ¹² and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be. ^13 (d)But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a ^(e)fifth to the valuation.

¹⁴ "When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the Lord, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. ^15 (f)And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a ^(g)fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.

¹⁶ "If a man dedicates to the Lord part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer^[c] of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. ¹⁷ If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand, ¹⁸ but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall ^(h)calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. ^19 (i)And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a ^(j)fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. ²⁰ But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. ²¹ But the field, ^(k)when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the Lord, like a field that has been ^(l)devoted. The priest shall be in ^(m)possession of it. ²² If he dedicates to the Lord a field that he has bought, ⁽ⁿ⁾which is not a part of his possession, ^23 (o)then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the Lord. ^24 (p)In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. ²⁵ Every valuation shall be according to ^(q)the shekel of the sanctuary: ^(r)twenty gerahs^[d] shall make a shekel.

²⁶ "But a ^(s)firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. ²⁷ And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, ^(t)and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.

²⁸ "But ^(u)no devoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. ^29 (v)No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction^[e] from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

^30 (w)"Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. ³¹ If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. ³² And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that ^(x)pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the Lord. ³³ One shall not differentiate between good or bad, ^(y)neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed."

^34 (z)These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel ^(aa)on Mount Sinai.