Covenant law
The law does not describe its rites so much as instruct them: bring this, lay a hand there, burn that part and not the other, eat this and never that. Each chart below sets one passage out as the procedure it is — every step in order, every branch where the text offers a choice, and every step opening the verse it rests on. They run through Leviticus from the offerings of the first seven chapters to the vows that close the book, and on into Deuteronomy, where the same covenant is set out a second time for the generation about to enter the land.
The offerings
13
Leviticus 1–7 — what is brought, by whom, and what becomes of it.
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The burnt offering
Leviticus 1:1–17 An animal given whole. Three ways in, one ending. -
The grain offering
Leviticus 2:1–16 Flour, oil and frankincense. A portion burned, the rest most holy. -
The peace offering
Leviticus 3:1–17 Herd, lamb or goat. The fat is the LORD’s portion. -
The sin offering
Leviticus 4:1–35 Four cases of unintentional sin, from the anointed priest to one of the people. -
Sin offerings within reach
Leviticus 5:1–13 Confession first, and an offering scaled to what a person can afford. -
The guilt offering
Leviticus 5:14–6:7 Restitution with a fifth added, then a ram without defect. -
The burnt offering: the priest’s duty
Leviticus 6:8–13 The fire on the altar is never to go out. -
The grain offering: the priest’s share
Leviticus 6:14–23 What Aaron’s sons eat, and what is burned whole. -
The sin offering: how it is handled
Leviticus 6:24–30 Most holy: where it is eaten, and what its blood touches. -
The guilt offering: the priest’s share
Leviticus 7:1–10 Most holy, and the shares that fall to the officiating priest. -
Peace offerings: thanksgiving, vow, freewill
Leviticus 7:11–21 Three occasions, and how long the meat may be eaten. -
Fat and blood
Leviticus 7:22–27 A lasting food law, binding wherever you live. -
Peace offerings: the priest’s share
Leviticus 7:28–38 The wave offering and the contribution, given to Aaron and his sons.
The priests
2
Leviticus 10 — the charge laid on Aaron’s house, and what it may eat.
Clean and unclean
9
Leviticus 11–12 — what may be eaten, what may be touched, and what follows if it is.
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Clean and unclean: land animals
Leviticus 11:1–8 A split hoof and chewing the cud. Both signs, or it is not food. -
Clean and unclean: what lives in water
Leviticus 11:9–12 Fins and scales are the whole test. -
Clean and unclean: birds
Leviticus 11:13–19 A list to be kept apart — raptors, scavengers and seabirds. -
Clean and unclean: winged insects
Leviticus 11:20–23 Leaping legs are the whole test, and locusts pass it. -
Touching a carcass
Leviticus 11:24–25 Touch it or carry it, then wash and wait for evening. -
Animals that fail the hoof test
Leviticus 11:26–28 Not eaten and not handled: the hoof rule, and what contact costs. -
Swarming creatures, and what they touch
Leviticus 11:29–38 A dead lizard in the kitchen: which vessels survive it and which are broken. -
Clean and unclean: the reason
Leviticus 11:39–47 Why the distinction is drawn at all — be holy, for I am holy. -
After childbirth
Leviticus 12:1–8 Days of purifying, then a lamb and a bird — or two birds, if a lamb is beyond her.
Skin disease and mildew
12
Leviticus 13–14 — the priest as examiner, and what makes a person, a garment or a house clean again.
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Skin disease: the first examination
Leviticus 13:1–3 Swelling, scab or bright spot. The priest looks, and either rules or waits. -
Skin disease: a bright spot
Leviticus 13:4–8 Shut away seven days, looked at again, and seven days more if it is unchanged. -
Skin disease: a swelling
Leviticus 13:9–17 The chronic case, where raw flesh turns the ruling. -
Skin disease: a healed boil
Leviticus 13:18–23 A mark where a boil has healed, and the second look that settles it. -
Skin disease: a burn
Leviticus 13:24–28 A red-white mark in burned skin, judged the same way and on the same clock. -
Skin disease: head or beard
Leviticus 13:29–37 Yellow hair is the sign; shaving and a second look decide the rest. -
Skin disease: bright white spots
Leviticus 13:38–39 Dull white spots are a harmless rash. He is clean. -
Skin disease: baldness
Leviticus 13:40–44 Losing hair is not the disease. A reddish-white sore in the bare skin is. -
Skin disease: life outside the camp
Leviticus 13:45–46 Torn clothes, uncovered head, and a dwelling apart while it lasts. -
Mildew in a garment
Leviticus 13:47–59 The same look-and-wait, applied to wool, linen and leather. -
Cleansing after skin disease
Leviticus 14:1–32 Two birds, one of them released; then shaving, washing, and offerings scaled to what he can afford. -
Mildew in a house
Leviticus 14:33–53 Stones pulled out and walls scraped — and the house pulled down if it returns.
Discharges
2
Leviticus 15 — what a flow of the body makes unclean, and the days and offerings that end it.
The Day of Atonement
4
Leviticus 16 — the one day the high priest goes behind the veil, and the goat that carries the rest away.
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The Day of Atonement: preparation
Leviticus 16:1–10 Plain linen, a washed body, and lots cast over two goats. -
The Day of Atonement: behind the veil
Leviticus 16:11–19 Incense first, so the mercy seat is covered; then the blood, seven times. -
The Day of Atonement: the live goat
Leviticus 16:20–28 Both hands on its head, every sin confessed over it, and the goat sent away. -
The Day of Atonement: once a year
Leviticus 16:29–34 The tenth day of the seventh month: a sabbath of rest, and no work at all.
Blood and slaughter
3
Leviticus 17 — where an animal may be killed, and why its blood is never eaten.
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Slaughter at the sanctuary
Leviticus 17:1–9 Bring it to the tent of meeting or be cut off — no sacrifice in the open field. -
Do not eat blood
Leviticus 17:10–14 The life is in the blood, and the blood is given for the altar. -
Animals found dead
Leviticus 17:15–16 Eat what died of itself and you wash, and wait until evening.
Forbidden relations
2
Leviticus 18 — the unions Israel is not to imitate, and what the land does to a people that does.
Holiness in daily life
9
Leviticus 19 — what being holy looks like on an ordinary day: wages, scales, gleanings, and a neighbor.
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Reverence and idols
Leviticus 19:1–4 Revere mother and father, keep the sabbaths, turn from idols. -
Eating a peace offering in time
Leviticus 19:5–8 Eaten on the day and the day after. What is left on the third is refused. -
Leave the gleanings
Leviticus 19:9–10 Do not reap to the edges. What falls is left for the poor and the stranger. -
Deal honestly
Leviticus 19:11–14 No stealing, no lying, no wages held overnight, no curse on the deaf. -
Justice, and love for a neighbor
Leviticus 19:15–19 No partiality in judgment, no slander, no grudge — love your neighbor as yourself. -
A guilt offering case
Leviticus 19:20–22 The one case in the holiness code that still ends at the altar, with a ram. -
Fruit trees and their first years
Leviticus 19:23–25 Three years uneaten, the fourth holy to the LORD, and the fifth yours. -
Practices to keep away from
Leviticus 19:26–29 Divination, cutting the body for the dead, and marks made on the skin. -
Sabbaths, the aged, and honest measures
Leviticus 19:30–37 Rise before the gray head, do not wrong the stranger, and keep the scales true.
Penalties
6
Leviticus 20 — the same boundaries as chapter 18, now with sentences attached, and the call to be separate that closes them.
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Molech
Leviticus 20:1–5 Giving a child to Molech, and what it costs the man and the family that hide it. -
Turning to spiritists
Leviticus 20:6 The person who goes after mediums is set apart — and not in the good sense. -
Sanctify yourselves
Leviticus 20:7–8 Keep the statutes: it is the LORD who makes a people holy. -
Family boundaries, and their penalties
Leviticus 20:9–21 Chapter 18’s list again, each line now carrying its sentence. -
Set apart from the peoples
Leviticus 20:22–26 The clean and unclean you were taught to tell apart is the pattern for a people. -
Mediums and wizards
Leviticus 20:27 One verse, and the sentence it carries.
Who may serve
5
Leviticus 21–22 — who may approach the altar, and who may eat what is holy.
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A priest’s conduct
Leviticus 21:1–9 Whom he may mourn, whom he may marry, and what a priest’s daughter costs him. -
The high priest
Leviticus 21:10–15 The anointed one is held to more: no torn clothes, no going out to the dead, not even for his father. -
Who may approach the altar
Leviticus 21:16–23 A defect keeps a son of Aaron from the altar, but never from the bread. -
Who may eat what is holy
Leviticus 22:1–16 A hired man and a guest may not. A slave bought with money, and a widowed daughter come home, may. -
Offerings without defect
Leviticus 22:17–33 Blind, injured, crushed — none of it is accepted, and a freewill gift is barely an exception.
The appointed times
1
Leviticus 23 — the feasts the year is measured by, from the Passover to the booths of the seventh month.
The lamp, the bread, and a judgment
2
Leviticus 24 — what Aaron keeps burning and sets out weekly, and the one case brought to Moses for a ruling.
Sabbath years and Jubilee
3
Leviticus 25 — the land’s own rest, the year that returns it, and what a brother fallen into debt is owed.
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The seventh year and the fiftieth
Leviticus 25:1–12 The land rests every seventh year, and on the tenth day of the seventh month the trumpet sends everyone home. -
Redeeming land
Leviticus 25:13–34 Land is sold by the harvests left until Jubilee, never outright — and a walled-city house is the exception. -
A brother fallen into debt
Leviticus 25:35–55 No interest, no ruling over him harshly, and the Jubilee ends it whatever was agreed.
Blessing, warning, and vows
3
Leviticus 26–27 — how the book ends: what obedience brings, what rejection brings, and what a thing promised to the LORD is worth.
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Idols, sabbaths, and the sanctuary
Leviticus 26:1–2 Two verses that set the terms of everything before them: no image to bow to, and holy time and place kept. -
Blessing, warning, and return
Leviticus 26:3–45 Rain and peace for those who walk in the statutes, escalating discipline for those who will not, and a covenant remembered even in exile. -
What a vow is worth
Leviticus 27:1–33 A scale of valuations for persons, animals, houses and fields — and the fifth added to buy any of them back.
The covenant restated
3
Deuteronomy 5–6 — the ten words spoken a second time, the confession Israel is to keep on its heart, and the forgetting that comes with a full table.
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The Ten Commandments
Deuteronomy 5:1–22 The ten words spoken at Horeb, set before a second generation as the covenant it still is. -
The Shema
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 Hear, love, teach, and write them on the doorposts: the confession that is meant to shape an ordinary day. -
Do not forget, when you are full
Deuteronomy 6:10–25 Cities, cisterns and vineyards Israel did not make — and the memory a full table puts at risk.
What is asked, and where
2
Deuteronomy 10–12 — what the LORD requires of a whole people, and the single place their worship is to be brought to.
Release and justice
3
Deuteronomy 15–17 — debts released, a hand opened to the poor, the courts that keep a town honest, and the one king Israel is allowed to want.
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Release, and an open hand
Deuteronomy 15:1–18 Debts released in the seventh year, a hand opened to a poor neighbor, and a servant sent away supplied rather than empty. -
Justice in the gates
Deuteronomy 16:18–17:13 Judges in every town, two witnesses before any sentence, and the hard case carried to the place the LORD chooses. -
The future king
Deuteronomy 17:14–20 A king from among the people, forbidden horses, wives and silver — and made to write out the law himself and read it every day of his reign.
The prophet, and the refuge
2
Deuteronomy 18–19 — the voice Israel is to listen for and the ones it must not, and the roads and witnesses that keep a death from becoming a feud.
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The prophet like Moses
Deuteronomy 18:9–22 No diviners and no mediums, a prophet the LORD raises instead, and the one test that tells a true word from a presumptuous one. -
Refuge and truthful witness
Deuteronomy 19:1–21 Roads kept open to three cities so an accidental killing is not avenged as murder, and the two witnesses any charge has to have.
The basket and the choice
2
Deuteronomy 26 and 30 — the first of the harvest carried up with the story of how Israel came to have one, and the choice the covenant ends on.
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Firstfruits and confession
Deuteronomy 26:1–15 The first of the harvest carried to the sanctuary in a basket, with the story of how Israel came to have a harvest at all. -
Choose life
Deuteronomy 30:1–20 Exile answered by return, a heart the LORD circumcises, a word near enough to keep — and life and death set before the people.
The order of these steps is adapted from the Torah flowcharts published by OpenBible.info, CC BY 4.0. The wording, the drawing and the illustrations are Biblion’s own.