Sinai & The Law

the value you are to assign to a man between the ages of twenty and sixty years is to be fifty shekels of silver [one-and-a-quarter pounds], with the sanctuary shekel being the standard,

if a woman, thirty shekels.

If it is a child five to twenty years old, assign a value of twenty shekels for a boy and ten for a girl;

if a baby one month to five years of age, five shekels for a boy and three for a girl;

if a person past sixty, fifteen shekels for a man and ten for a woman.

If the person is too poor to be evaluated, set him before the cohen, who will assign him a value in keeping with the means of the person who made the vow.

"'If the vow is for the value of an animal of the kind used when people bring an offering to ADONAI, all that a person gives of such animals to ADONAI will be holy.

He is not to exchange or replace it by substituting a good animal for a bad one or vice versa; if he does make such a substitution, both the original animal and the one replacing it will be holy.

If the animal is an unclean one, such as may not be used in an offering to ADONAI, he must set it before the cohen;

and the cohen is to set a value on it in relation to its good and bad points; the value set by you the cohen will stand.

But if the person making the vow wishes to redeem the animal, he must add one-fifth to your valuation.

"'When a person consecrates his house to be holy for ADONAI, the cohen is to set a value on it in relation to its good and bad points; the value set by the cohen will stand.

If the consecrator wishes to redeem his house, he must add one-fifth to the value you have set on it; and it will revert to him.

"'If a person consecrates to ADONAI part of a field belonging to his tribe's possession, you are to value it according to its production, with five bushels of barley being valued at fifty shekels of silver [one-and-a-quarter pounds].

If he consecrates his field during the year of yovel, this valuation will stand.

But if he consecrates his field after the yovel, then the cohen is to calculate the price according to the years remaining till the next yovel, with a corresponding reduction from your valuation.

If the one consecrating the field wishes to redeem it, he must add one-fifth to your valuation, and the field will be set aside to revert to him.

If the seller does not wish to redeem the field, or if [the treasurer for the cohanim] has already sold the field to someone else, it can no longer be redeemed.

But when the purchaser has to vacate the field in the yovel, it will become holy to ADONAI, like a field unconditionally consecrated; it will belong to the cohanim.

"'If he consecrates to ADONAI a field which he has bought, a field which is not part of his tribe's possession,

then the cohen is to calculate its value according to the years remaining until the year of yovel; and the man will on that same day pay this amount; since it is holy to ADONAI.

In the year of yovel the field will revert to the person from whom it was bought, that is, to the person to whose tribal possession it belongs.

"'All your valuations are to be according to the sanctuary shekel [two-fifths of an ounce], twenty gerahs to the shekel.

"'However, the firstborn among animals, since it is already born as a firstborn for ADONAI, no one can consecrate -neither ox nor sheep -since it belongs to ADONAI already.

But if it is an unclean animal, he may redeem it at the price at which you value it and add one-fifth; or if he does not redeem it, it is to be sold at the price at which you value it.