Leviticus 5:14-6:7 describes what are traditionally called "guilt offerings" in English. Scholars today prefer the term "reparation offerings." Commentator Jay Sklar describes this kind of offering as "a ransom payment by means of sacrificial blood that rescues the sinner and restores relationship with God."
One situation in which a reparation offering was called for is a case where one had taken or misused some holy thing---for example, eating food reserved for the priests.
Also covered here were situations where a person was suffering and believed the suffering was being caused by an inadvertent misuse of a holy thing (Lev 5:17-19).
A third category included situations in which a person had made a false oath to get away with a financial crimre---e.g., finding something that was lost and claiming that one hadn't.
People were moved to come forward and make reparation when they began to suffer the consequences of their sin. A message here is that there is no such thing as a "secret sin". God knows what we have done.
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