Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 210
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IMMERSE
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BEGINNINGS
27:12-32
the priest. He will assess its value, and his assessment will be final, whether
high or low. If you want to buy back the animal, you must pay the value set
by the priest, plus 20 percent.
“If someone dedicates a house to the Lord, the priest will come to assess its value. The priest’s assessment will be final, whether high or low. If
the person who dedicated the house wants to buy it back, he must pay the
value set by the priest, plus 20 percent. Then the house will again be his.
“If someone dedicates to the Lord a piece of his family property, its
value will be assessed according to the amount of seed required to plant
it—fifty shekels of silver for a field planted with five bushels of barley seed.
If the field is dedicated to the Lord in the Year of Jubilee, then the entire
assessment will apply. But if the field is dedicated after the Year of Jubilee,
the priest will assess the land’s value in proportion to the number of years
left until the next Year of Jubilee. Its assessed value is reduced each year. If
the person who dedicated the field wants to buy it back, he must pay the
value set by the priest, plus 20 percent. Then the field will again be legally
his. But if he does not want to buy it back, and it is sold to someone else,
the field can no longer be bought back. When the field is released in the
Year of Jubilee, it will be holy, a field specially set apart for the Lord. It will
become the property of the priests.
“If someone dedicates to the Lord a field he has purchased but which
is not part of his family property, the priest will assess its value based on
the number of years left until the next Year of Jubilee. On that day he must
give the assessed value of the land as a sacred donation to the Lord. In
the Year of Jubilee the field must be returned to the person from whom
he purchased it, the one who inherited it as family property. (All the payments must be measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel, which
equals twenty gerahs.)
“You may not dedicate a firstborn animal to the Lord, for the firstborn
of your cattle, sheep, and goats already belong to him. However, you may
buy back the firstborn of a ceremonially unclean animal by paying the
priest’s assessment of its worth, plus 20 percent. If you do not buy it back,
the priest will sell it at its assessed value.
“However, anything specially set apart for the Lord—whether a person, an animal, or family property—must never be sold or bought back.
Anything devoted in this way has been set apart as holy, and it belongs to
the Lord. No person specially set apart for destruction may be bought
back. Such a person must be put to death.
“One-tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or
fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord and must be set apart to him as
holy. If you want to buy back the Lord’s tenth of the grain or fruit, you
must pay its value, plus 20 percent. Count off every tenth animal from your
