How Sacrifices Are Offered

Since I have come to this subject of sacrifices, I will now mention a few of our laws that concern purifications and similar sacred services. These sacrifices were of two sorts: one was offered for private persons, the other for the people in general, and they are done in two different ways. In the one, what is slaughtered is burned whole, as a whole burnt offering, which is where the name comes from; the other is a thank offering, meant to provide a feast for those who sacrifice. I will speak of the first. If a private man offers a burnt offering, he must slaughter a bull, a lamb, or a young goat — the latter two in their first year, though with bulls he is allowed to sacrifice older ones; but all burnt offerings must be males. When they are slaughtered, the priests sprinkle the blood all around the altar. Then they clean the bodies, cut them into pieces, salt them, and lay them on the altar, while the pieces of wood are piled one on another and the fire is burning. Next they carefully wash the feet and the entrails of the sacrifices and lay them with the rest to be purified by the fire, while the priests take the hides. This is how a burnt offering is offered. [a]

Those who offer thank offerings sacrifice the same animals, but they must be without blemish and more than a year old, though they may be either male or female. They too sprinkle the altar with the blood. On the altar they lay the kidneys and the fatty membrane over the entrails, all the fat, and the lobe of the liver, together with the tail of the lamb. Then, after giving the breast and the right leg to the priests, the offerers feast on the rest of the meat for two days, and whatever is left they burn. [b]

Sacrifices for sins are offered in the same way as the thank offering. But those who cannot afford full sacrifices offer two pigeons or turtledoves: one is made a burnt offering to God, and the other they give to the priests as food. We will treat the offering of these creatures more exactly in our account of the sacrifices. If someone falls into sin through ignorance, he offers a ewe lamb or a female goat of the same age. The priests sprinkle the blood at the altar, not in the way described before, but at its corners. They also bring the kidneys and the rest of the fat, with the lobe of the liver, to the altar, while the priests take away the hides and the meat and use them up in the holy place that same day; for the law does not allow them to leave any of it until morning. But if someone sins and knows it himself, though no one can prove it against him, he offers a ram, as the law directs, and the priests eat its meat, as before, in the holy place the same day. And if rulers offer sacrifices for their sins, they bring the same offerings as private men, differing only in this: they are to bring as their sacrifice a bull or a young goat, both males. [c]

The law requires that in both private and public sacrifices the finest flour also be brought: for a lamb, about two quarts; for a ram, twice that; and for a bull, three times as much. They consecrate this on the altar mixed with oil, for those who sacrifice also bring oil: for a bull, half a gallon; for a ram, a third of that measure; and for a lamb, a quarter of it. The measure is the hin, an ancient Hebrew measure equal to two Athenian choes. They bring the same quantity of wine as of oil, and they pour the wine around the altar. But if someone does not offer a full sacrifice of animals, but brings fine flour only, for a vow, he throws a handful of it on the altar as its firstfruits, while the priests take the rest for their food, either boiled — for it has been mixed with oil — or made into loaves of bread. But whatever a priest himself offers must all be burned. The law forbids us to sacrifice any animal at the same time as its mother, and in other cases not until the eighth day after its birth. There are also other sacrifices appointed for escape from sickness, or for other occasions, in which grain offerings are consumed together with the animals sacrificed. Of these it is not lawful to leave any part until the next day, except that the priests are to take their own share. [d]