Numbers 18:1-32
18 And Jehovah said to Aaron “You, and your sons and your family with you, are to bear the responsibility for the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you are to bear the responsibility for your priestly office.
2 And bring near with you also your brothers the tribe of Levi, your father’s stock, and let them become your auxiliaries and wait on you, while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the Lessons;
3 and they shall do duty for you and for the Tent, only not come near the sacred vessels and the altar, when both they and you would die.
4 And they shall become your auxiliaries and do duty for the Tent of Meeting in all service of the Tent; and no outsider shall come near you.
5 And you shall do duty for the sacred things and for the altar, so that there shall not be wrath again against the sons of Israel.
6 And I on my part have taken your brothers the Levites from among the sons of Israel as a gift given to Jehovah for you, to do the service of the Tent of Meeting;
7 * and you and your sons with you shall attend to your priestly duties for every matter of the altar and of inside the veil and their service. I will give you your priestly duties as a gift-service, and the outsider who comes near shall be put to death.”
8 And Jehovah spoke to Aaron: “And I on my part give you the keeping of my contributions: all the sacred things of the sons of Israel I give to you as endowment and to your sons as a perpetual right.
9 This you shall have of the holiest of the holy, out of the fire: all their oblations, of all their grain-offerings and all their sin-offerings and all their expiations which they pay to me, shall be holiest of the holy belonging to you and your sons.
10 You shall eat them as holiest of the holy; every male shall eat it; you shall hold it sacred.
11 And this you shall have as contribution of their gift: all the wave-offerings of the sons of Israel I give to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual right: every clean person in your household shall eat it.
12 All the fat of oil and all the fat of grape-juice and grain, the first of them, which they give to Jehovah, I give to you.
13 The firstfruits of everything in their country, which they bring to Jehovah, shall be yours: every clean person in your household shall eat it.
14 Every deodand in Israel shall be yours.
15 And every birth that has started a womb of any creature, which they present to Jehovah, man and beast, shall be yours; only you shall have the firstborn of man ransomed, and the firstborn of unclean beasts you shall have ransomed.
16 And what are ransomed you shall have ransomed at a month old, for an assessed sum in silver, fifty shekels by the sacred standard, which is twenty gerahs to the shekel.
17 Only the firstborn of horned cattle or of sheep or of goats you shall not have redeemed; it is sacred: their blood you shall throw against the altar and their fat you shall burn as a fire-offering for a genial odor to Jehovah,
18 and their flesh shall be yours: like the wave-brisket and the right leg it shall be yours.
19 All contributions of sacred things that the sons of Israel contribute to Jehovah I give to you and your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual right: it is a perpetual covenant of salt to you and to your descendants with you before Jehovah.”
20 And Jehovah said to Aaron “You shall not come in for a property in their country nor have a share among them; I am your share and estate among the sons of Israel.
21 “And to the sons of Levi I give for estate all tithes in Israel in consideration of their service, that they do the service of the Tent of Meeting
22 and the sons of Israel shall not come near the Tent of Meeting again to incur sin so as to die;
23 but the Levites shall do the service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear their responsibility, as a perpetual usage generation after generation; and among the sons of Israel they shall come in for no estate,
24 for the tithes of the sons of Israel which they take out as a contribution to Jehovah I give to the Levites as estate; that is why I say to them ‘among the sons of Israel they shall come in for no estate.’”
25 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying
26 “And to the Levites you shall speak and say to them ‘When you take from the sons of Israel the tithe which I have given you from them in their domain, you shall take out Jehovah’s contribution from it, a tithe of the tithe,
27 and your contribution shall count for you like the grain from the threshing-floor and like the fillings from the winepress.
28 In the same way you too shall take out Jehovah’s contribution from all your tithes that you take from the sons of Israel, and give Jehovah’s contribution from it to Priest Aaron.
29 * Out of all your gifts you shall take out Jehovah’s contribution, out of all the fat of it, its part set off from it as sacred.’
30 And you shall say to them ‘When you take out the fat from it, it will rank for the Levites like the produce of threshing-floor or of winepress,
31 and you shall eat it in any place, you and your families, because it is wages that you get in consideration of your service in the Tent of Meeting;
32 and you will not incur sin over it when you take out the fat from it, and will not be profaning the sacred things of the sons of Israel so that you should die.’”
Footnotes
^ 18:7 Codd.* veil, and you shall serve. I will
^ 18:29 Var. take out all Jehovah’s contribution
