CHAPTER 18

¹And the LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father’s house with you, you shall bear the guilt of the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you, you shall bear the guilt of your priesthood. ²And your brothers, too, the tribe of Levi, your father’s tribe, bring forward with you, and they will be levied with you and serve you, and you and your sons with you are to be before the Ark of the Covenant. ³And they will keep your watch, the watch of all the Tent. Only they must not come near the sacred vessels and the altar, so that they do not die, both they and you. ⁴And they will be levied with you and keep the watch of the Tent of Meeting for all the work of the Tent, and no stranger shall come near them. ⁵And you shall keep the watch of the sacred zone and the watch of the altar, that there be no more fury against the Israelites. ⁶And as for Me, look, I have taken your brothers the Levites from the midst of the Israelites, as a gift for you they are given to the LORD, to do the work of the Tent of Meeting. ⁷And you and your sons with you, you shall keep your priesthood for every matter of the altar and for inside the curtain, and you shall do the work. As gift work I shall give your priesthood, and the stranger who comes near will be put to death.”

⁸And the LORD spoke to Aaron, “And as for Me, look, I have given you the watch of My donations for all the holy things of the Israelites, to you I have given them as a share and to your sons as a perpetual statute. ⁹This will be yours from the most holy things from the fire, all their offerings, including all their grain offerings and all their offense offerings and all their guilt offerings that they give back to Me, most holy things they are for you and for your sons. ¹⁰In the most holy precincts you shall eat it, every male shall eat it. It will be holy for you. ¹¹And this is yours: their gift of donations including all the donation offerings of the Israelites, to you I have given them, and to your sons and to your daughters with you as a perpetual statute, every clean person in your household will eat it. ¹²All the richest of the oil and all the richest of the wine and the grain, their prime yield that they give to the LORD, to you I have given them. ¹³The first fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the LORD, for you it will be, every clean person in your household will eat it. ¹⁴Everything that has been proscribed in Israel, yours it will be. ¹⁵Every womb-breach for all flesh that they offer to the LORD whether human or beast, yours it will be. But you shall surely redeem every human firstborn, and the firstborn of unclean beasts you shall redeem. ¹⁶And its redemption price from a month old you shall redeem at the value in silver of five shekels by the sanctuary shekel, which is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷But the firstborn of an ox or the firstborn of a sheep or the firstborn of a goat you shall not redeem; they are holy. Their blood you shall throw upon the altar and their fat you shall turn to smoke, a fire offering with pleasing fragrance to the LORD. ¹⁸And their flesh will be yours, like the best of the elevation offering and like the right thigh, yours it will be. ¹⁹All the donations of the holy things that the Israelites donate to the LORD I have given to you and to your sons and to your daughters with you as a perpetual statute, a perpetual covenant of salt it is before the LORD, for you and for your seed with you.”

²⁰And the LORD said to Aaron, “In their land you shall have no estate, and no portion shall you have in their midst. I am your estate and your portion in the midst of the Israelites. ²¹And to the Levites, look, I have given every tithe in Israel as an estate in exchange for their work that they perform, the work of the Tent of Meeting. ²²And the Israelites will no longer draw near to the Tent of Meeting to bear offense to die. ²³And the Levite, he shall perform the work of the Tent of Meeting, and they will bear their guilt. It is a perpetual statute for your generations, and in the midst of the Israelites they will have no estate. ²⁴For the tithe of the Israelites which they donate to the LORD, I have given as a donation to the Levites for an estate. Therefore did I say to them, ‘In the midst of the Israelites they will have no estate.’”

²⁵And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁶“And to the Levites you shall speak, and you shall say to them, ‘When you take from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them as your estate, you shall donate from it the LORD’s donation, a tithe of the tithe. ²⁷And it will be accounted for you as your donation, like the yield from the threshing floor and like the matured wine from the vat. ²⁸So shall you, too, donate the LORD’s donation from all your tithes that you take from the Israelites, and you shall give from them the LORD’s donation to Aaron the priest. ²⁹From all your gifts you shall donate the LORD’s donation, from all the richest of it, the consecrated part of it. ³⁰And you shall say to them, When you donate the richest of it, it will be accounted for the Levites like the yield from the threshing floor and like the yield from the vat. ³¹And you shall eat it in every place, you and your households, for it is wages for you in exchange for your work in the Tent of Meeting. ³²And you shall not bear offense for it when you donate the richest of it, and you shall not profane the holy things of the Israelites and you shall not die.’”