Numbers - The Old Testament

¹ Yahweh then said to Aaron: 'You, your sons and your ancestor's line with you will be answerable for offences against the sanctuary. You and your sons with you will be answerable for the offences of your priesthood.

² You will admit your brothers of the branch of Levi, your ancestor's tribe, to join you and serve you, yourself and your sons, before the Tent of the Testimony.

³ They must be at your service and the service of the whole Tent. Provided they do not come near the sacred vessels or the altar, they will be in no more danger of death than you.

⁴ They must join you, they must take charge of the Tent of Meeting for the entire ministry of the Tent, and no unauthorised person will come near you.

⁵ You will take charge of the sanctuary and charge of the altar, and retribution will never again befall the Israelites.

⁶ Of the Israelites, I myself have chosen your brothers the Levites as a gift to you. As men dedicated, they will belong to Yahweh, to serve at the Tent of Meeting.

⁷ You and your sons will undertake the priestly duties in all that concerns the altar and all that lies behind the curtain. You will perform the liturgy, the duties of which I entrust to your priesthood. But an unauthorised person approaching will incur death,'

⁸ Yahweh said to Aaron: 'I myself have put you in charge of everything set aside for me. Everything consecrated by the Israelites I give to you and your sons as your portion by perpetual decree.

⁹ Of the things especially holy, of the food offered, this is what will revert to you: every offering that the Israelites give back to me, whether it be a cereal offering, a sacrifice for sin or a sacrifice of reparation, is a thing especially holy and will revert to you and your sons.

¹⁰ You will eat the things especially holy. Every male may eat them. You will regard them as sacred.

¹¹ 'To you will revert also whatever is set aside from the offerings of the Israelites, whatever is held out with the gesture of offering; this I give to you and your sons and daughters, by perpetual decree. All members of your household may eat it unless they are unclean.

¹² All the best of the oil, all the best of the new wine and wheat, these first-fruits offered by them to Yahweh I give to you.

¹³ All the first produce of the country brought by them to Yahweh will revert to you. All members of your household may eat it unless they are unclean.

¹⁴ Everything in Israel put under the curse of destruction will revert to you.

¹⁵ Every first-born of all creatures brought to Yahweh, human or animal, will revert to you, but you will have to redeem the first-born of man; you will also redeem the first-born of an unclean animal.

¹⁶ You will redeem it in the month in which it is born, valuing it at five shekels, at the sanctuary shekel, which is twenty gerah.

¹⁷ But you will not redeem the first-born of cow, sheep and goat. They are holy: you will sprinkle their blood on the altar and burn the fat as food burnt to be a smell pleasing to Yahweh;

¹⁸ the meat will revert to you, as will the forequarter that has been presented with the gesture of offering, and the right thigh.

¹⁹ Everything the Israelites set aside for Yahweh from the holy things, I give to you and your sons and daughters, by perpetual decree. This is a covenant of salt for ever before Yahweh, for you and your descendants too.'

²⁰ Yahweh said to Aaron: 'You will have no heritage in their country, you will not have a portion like them; I shall be your portion and your heritage among the Israelites.

²¹ 'Look, as heritage I give the Levites all the tithes collected in Israel, in return for their services, for the ministry they render in the Tent of Meeting.

²² The Israelites will no longer approach the Tent of Meeting, on pain of committing a deadly sin.

²³ Levi will discharge the duties of the Tent of Meeting, and the Levites will bear the consequences of their own guilt. This is a perpetual decree binding all your descendants: the Levites will have no heritage among the Israelites,

²⁴ for the tithe which the Israelites set aside for Yahweh is the heritage I have given the Levites. This is why I have told them that they will have no heritage among the Israelites.'

²⁵ Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,

²⁶ 'Speak to the Levites and say: "When from the Israelites you receive the tithe which I have given you from them as your heritage, you will set a portion of this aside for Yahweh: a tithe of the tithe.

²⁷ It will take the place of the portion set aside that is due from you, like the wheat from the threshing-floor and new wine from the press.

²⁸ Thus you too will set a portion aside for Yahweh out of all the tithes you receive from the Israelites. You will give what you have set aside for Yahweh to the priest Aaron.

²⁹ Out of all the gifts you receive, you will set a portion aside for Yahweh. Out of all these things, you will set aside the best, the sacred portion."

³⁰ 'You will say to them, "After you have set the best aside, the remainder will take the place, in the Levites' case, of the produce of the threshing-floor and wine-press.

³¹ You may consume this anywhere, you and the members of your households; this is your recompense for serving in the Tent of Meeting,

³² and you will not incur sin by doing so, once you have set aside the best; you will not be profaning the things consecrated by the Israelites and will not incur death." '