² Say to the children of Israel, If a man or a woman takes an oath to keep himself separate and give himself to the Lord;

¹¹ And some of your sons I made prophets, and some of your young men I made separate for myself. Is it not even so, O children of Israel? says the Lord.

¹² But to those who were separate you gave wine for drink; and to the prophets you said, Be prophets no longer.

⁵ For you are with child and will give birth to a son; his hair is never to be cut, for the child is to be separate to God from his birth; and he will take up the work of freeing Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

¹ Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, an Apostle by the selection of God, given authority as a preacher of the good news,

²⁷ Who has no need to make offerings for sins every day, like those high priests, first for himself, and then for the people; because he did this once and for ever when he made an offering of himself.

¹⁵ But when it was the good pleasure of God, by whom I was marked out even from my mother's body, through his grace,

¹⁶ And what agreement has the house of God with images? for we are a house of the living God; even as God has said, I will be living among them, and walking with them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

²³ Do this, then, which we say to you: We have four men who have taken an oath;

²⁴ Go with these, and make yourself clean with them, and make the necessary payments for them, so that they may be free from their oath: and everyone will see that the statements made about you are not true, but that you put yourself under rule, and keep the law.

¹⁵ For he will be great in the eyes of the Lord; he will not take wine or strong drink; and he will be full of the Spirit of God from his birth.

¹ He who keeps himself separate for his private purpose goes against all good sense.

²⁸ So I have given him to the Lord; for all his life he is the Lord's. Then he gave the Lord worship there.

¹⁷ And opening all his heart to her, he said to her, My head has never been touched by a blade, for I have been separate to God from the day of my birth: if my hair is cut off, then my strength will go from me and I will become feeble, and will be like any other man.

⁵ All the time he is under his oath let no blade come near his head; till the days while he is separate are ended he is holy and his hair may not be cut.

⁶ All the time he is separate he may not come near any dead body.

² Say to the children of Israel, If a man makes a special oath, you will give your decision as to the value of the persons for the Lord.

²⁶ And you are to be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy and have made you separate from the nations, so that you may be my people.

¹⁶ For is not the fact of your going with us the sign that I and this people have grace in your eyes, so that we, that is, I and your people, are separate from all other people on the face of the earth?