25 Bible Verses about Ritual Law
Most Relevant Verses
They must keep My instruction, or they will be guilty and die because they profane it; I am Yahweh who sets them apart.
You must distinguish between the holy and the common, and the clean and the unclean,
Say to them: If any man from any of your descendants throughout your generations is in a state of uncleanness yet approaches the holy offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the Lord, that person will be cut off from My presence; I am Yahweh.
The Lord said to Moses: “Speak to Aaron’s sons, the priests, and tell them: A priest is not to make himself ceremonially unclean for a dead person among his relatives, except for his immediate family: his mother, father, son, daughter, or brother. He may make himself unclean for his young unmarried sister in his immediate family.
You are not to present anything that has a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf. “When a man presents a fellowship sacrifice to the Lord to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or flock, it has to be unblemished to be acceptable; there must be no defect in it. You are not to present any animal to the Lord that is blind, injured, maimed, or has a running sore, festering rash, or scabs; you may not put any of them on the altar as a fire offering to the Lord. read more.
You may sacrifice as a freewill offering any animal from the herd or flock that has an elongated or stunted limb, but it is not acceptable as a vow offering. You are not to present to the Lord anything that has bruised, crushed, torn, or severed testicles; you must not sacrifice them in your land. Neither you nor a foreigner are to present food to your God from any of these animals. They will not be accepted for you because they are deformed and have a defect.”
“Speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.
You are to be holy to Me because I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be Mine.
For I am Yahweh your God, so you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any swarming creature that crawls on the ground. For I am Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy.
You are to consider him holy since he presents the food of your God. He will be holy to you because I, Yahweh who sets you apart, am holy.
You must not profane My holy name; I must be treated as holy among the Israelites. I am Yahweh who sets you apart,
“This is the law concerning animals, birds, all living creatures that move in the water, and all creatures that swarm on the ground, in order to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between the animals that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.”
You are to take with you seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female,
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: “Tell the Israelites: You may eat all these kinds of land animals. You may eat any animal with divided hooves and that chews the cud. read more.
But among the ones that chew the cud or have divided hooves you are not to eat these:
the camel, though it chews the cud,
does not have divided hooves—it is unclean for you;
the hyrax, though it chews the cud,
does not have hooves—it is unclean for you;
the hare, though it chews the cud,
does not have hooves—it is unclean for you;
the pig, though it has divided hooves,
does not chew the cud—it is unclean for you. Do not eat any of their meat or touch their carcasses—they are unclean for you. “This is what you may eat from all that is in the water: You may eat everything in the water that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or streams. But these are to be detestable to you: everything in the seas or streams that does not have fins and scales among all the swarming things and other living creatures in the water. They are to remain detestable to you; you must not eat any of their meat, and you must detest their carcasses. Everything in the water that does not have fins and scales will be detestable to you. “You are to detest these birds. They must not be eaten because they are detestable:
the eagle, the bearded vulture,
the black vulture, the kite,
any kind of falcon,
every kind of raven, the ostrich,
the short-eared owl, the gull,
any kind of hawk,
the little owl, the cormorant,
the long-eared owl,
the white owl, the desert owl,
the osprey, the stork,
any kind of heron,
the hoopoe, and the bat. “All winged insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. But you may eat these kinds of all the winged insects that walk on all fours: those that have jointed legs above their feet for hopping on the ground. You may eat these:
any kind of locust, katydid, cricket, and grasshopper. All other winged insects that have four feet are to be detestable to you.
“You must not eat any detestable thing. These are the animals you may eat:
the ox, the sheep, the goat,
the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer,
the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope,
and the mountain sheep. read more.
You may eat any animal that has hooves divided in two and chews the cud. But among the ones that chew the cud or have divided hooves, you are not to eat these:
the camel, the hare, and the hyrax,
though they chew the cud, they do not have hooves—
they are unclean for you;
and the pig, though it has hooves, it does not chew the cud—
it is unclean for you.
You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses. “You may eat everything from the water that has fins and scales, but you may not eat anything that does not have fins and scales—it is unclean for you. “You may eat every clean bird, but these are the ones you may not eat:
the eagle, the bearded vulture,
the black vulture, the kite,
any kind of falcon,
every kind of raven, the ostrich,
the short-eared owl, the gull,
any kind of hawk,
the little owl, the long-eared owl,
the white owl, the desert owl,
the osprey, the cormorant, the stork,
any kind of heron,
the hoopoe, and the bat. All winged insects are unclean for you; they may not be eaten. But you may eat every clean flying creature.
“You are not to eat any carcass; you may give it to a temporary resident living within your gates, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
The Lord spoke to Moses: “Tell the Israelites: When a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth to a male child, she will be unclean seven days, as she is during the days of her menstrual impurity. The flesh of his foreskin must be circumcised on the eighth day. read more.
She will continue in purification from her bleeding for 33 days. She must not touch any holy thing or go into the sanctuary until completing her days of purification. But if she gives birth to a female child, she will be unclean for two weeks as she is during her menstrual impurity. She will continue in purification from her bleeding for 66 days.
And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (just as it is written in the law of the Lord: Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord) and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons).
After He says above, You did not want or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), He then says, See, I have come to do Your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this will of God, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.
He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.
He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.
If then, perfection came through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there for another priest to appear, said to be in the order of Melchizedek and not in the order of Aaron?
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the actual form of those realities, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, once purified, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.
