This is our last conversation in the scroll of Leviticus.

The Israelites are in the wilderness.

They've made a covenant with God who has now settled in their midst in a sacred tent

called the Tabernacle.

And God wants Israel to come near to him, and so he provides Israel a sacrificial system,

which is administered by the priests.

It's a sacred task being a priest going into the hot spots of God's presence on behalf

of Israel.

The priests have to pay attention to how they take care of the Tabernacle.

The Israelites, what do they care for?

Like the tent isn't their responsibility, it's for the priests.

So what we're going to see in this section is a developing motif that what Israelites

care for, the holy thing that they possess in their midst, is the name of Yahweh, whose

name they carry.

And so there's this repeated phrase, one of the most repeated phrases through Leviticus

1727 about defiling Yahweh's name.

Don't defile Yahweh's name.

To defile something is to take something that is holy and treat it like it's common.

And we find out defiling Yahweh's name is a big deal because you're taking something

that's Yahweh's, uniquely Yahweh's, and you're treating it like it's yours, like you

can do what you want with it.

If you remember back in Exodus, Israel gets the Ten Commandments, and the Third Commandment

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