Numbers 18

1 And YHWH said to Aaron, “You, and your sons, and the house of your father with you, bear the iniquity of the sanctuary. And you and your sons with you bear the iniquity of your priesthood. 2 And also your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, bring near with you, and they will be joined to you, and serve you, even you and your sons with you, before the Tent of the Testimony. 3 And they will keep your charge, and the charge of all the tent. Only, they will not come near to the vessels of the holy place and to the altar, and they will not die, either they or you. 4 And they will be joined to you and will keep the charge of the Tent of Meeting for all the service of the tent. And a stranger will not come near to you. 5 And you will keep the charge of the holy place and the charge of the altar, and there will be no more wrath against the sons of Israel. 6 And I, look, will take your brothers the Levites from the middle of the sons of Israel. They are a gift given to you by YHWH to do the service of the Tent of Meeting. 7 And you and your sons with you will keep your priesthood for everything of the altar and within the veil, and you will serve. I make your priesthood a gift for service. And the stranger who is coming near will be put to death.” 8 And YHWH spoke to Aaron: “And I, look, have given to you the charge of My raised-offerings, of all the hallowed things of the sons of Israel—I have given them to you and to your sons for the anointing, by a continuous statute. 9 This is yours from the most holy things, from the fire: all their offering, of all their present, and of all their sin-offering, and of all their guilt-offering, which they give back to Me, will be most holy to you and to your sons. 10 You will eat it among the most holy things. Every male will eat it. It will be holy to you. 11 And this is yours: the raised-offering of their gift, with all the wave-offerings of the sons of Israel. I give them to you, and to your sons, and to your daughters with you, by a continuous statute. Every clean one in your house will eat it. 12 All the best of the oil, and all the best of the new wine, and wheat—their first-fruits which they give to YHWH—I give them to you. 13 The first-fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to YHWH, will be yours. Every clean one in your house will eat it. 14 Every devoted thing in Israel will be yours. 15 Everyone opening a womb of all flesh which they bring near to YHWH, among man and among beast, will be yours. Only, you will certainly ransom the firstborn of man, and you will ransom the firstling of the unclean beast. 16 And their ransomed ones from a son of a month, you ransom with your valuation for five shekels of silver, by the shekel of the holy place. It [+is+] twenty gerahs. 17 Only, the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, you will not ransom, they are holy: you will sprinkle their blood on the altar, and you will make incense of their fat as a fire-offering of refreshing fragrance to YHWH. 18 And their flesh will be yours, as the breast of the wave-offering and as the right leg will be yours. 19 All the raised-offerings of the holy things, which the sons of Israel lift up to YHWH, I give to you, and to your sons, and to your daughters with you, by a continuous statute—a covenant of salt. It will be continuous before YHWH to you and to your seed with you.” 20 And YHWH said to Aaron, “You will not inherit in their land, and you will not have a portion in their middle: I am your portion and your inheritance in the middle of the sons of Israel. 21 And to the sons of Levi, look, will give all the tenth in Israel for inheritance in exchange for their service which they are serving—the service of the Tent of Meeting. 22 And the sons of Israel will no longer come near to the Tent of Meeting, to bear sin, to die, 23 and the Levites will do the service of the Tent of Meeting, and they will bear their iniquity. It will be a continuous statute throughout your generations that they have no inheritance in the middle of the sons of Israel. 24 But the tithe of the sons of Israel which they lift up to YHWH, a raised-offering, I give to the Levites for inheritance. Therefore I say of them, They have no inheritance in the middle of the sons of Israel.” 25 And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying, 26 “And you speak to the Levites, and you will say to them: When you take the tithe from the sons of Israel which I give to you from them for your inheritance, then you will lift up the raised-offering of YHWH from it, a tithe of the tithe. 27 And your raised-offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing-floor and as the fullness from the wine-vat. 28 So you lift up—you also—the raised-offering of YHWH from all your tithes which you receive from the sons of Israel. And you will give the raised-offering of YHWH from it to Aaron the priest. 29 Out of all your gifts you lift up every raised-offering of YHWH, out of all its fat—its hallowed part—out of it. 30 And you will say to them: In your lifting up its fat out of it, then it will be reckoned to the Levites as increase of a threshing-floor and as increase of a wine-vat. 31 And you eat it in every place, you and your households, for it will be your hire in exchange for your service in the Tent of Meeting. 32 And you will bear no sin for it in your lifting up its fat out of it, but you will not defile the holy things of the sons of Israel, and you will not die.”