Números 18

The duties of priests and Levites

¹The LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father’s family with you will bear the guilt for any offense against the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you will bear the guilt for any offense in your priesthood. ²Bring with you also your relatives, the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, so that they may join you and assist you while you and your sons with you are in front of the tent of the testimony. ³They are to carry out their duties to you and their duties for the whole tent, but they must not come near the holy furnishings or the altar, or both they and you will die. ⁴They are to join you and carry out the duties of the tent of meeting, all the work of the tent, and no outsider may come near you. ⁵You are to carry out the duties of the sanctuary and the duties of the altar, so that wrath will not fall again on the Israelites. ⁶I myself have taken your relatives the Levites from among the Israelites. They are a gift to you, given to the LORD, to do the work of the tent of meeting. ⁷But you and your sons with you are to carry out your priesthood in everything to do with the altar and with what is behind the curtain, and you are to do that service. I am giving you your priesthood as a gift for service. Any outsider who comes near is to be put to death.”

The priests’ portion of the holy gifts

⁸The LORD spoke to Aaron: “I myself have put you in charge of the contributions made to me, all the holy gifts of the Israelites. I have given them to you and your sons as your portion, a permanent share.^{a 9}This is what will be yours from the most holy things, the part not burned in the fire: every offering they bring, whether grain offering, sin offering or guilt offering that they pay back to me. It is most holy, for you and your sons. ¹⁰You are to eat it in a most holy place. Every male may eat it. It is to be holy to you.^{b 11}This also is yours: the contribution from their gifts, together with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent share. Everyone in your household who is clean may eat it. ¹²I have given you all the best of the olive oil and all the best of the new wine and the grain, the first part of the harvest that they give to the LORD. ¹³The first ripe fruits of everything in their land that they bring to the LORD will be yours. Everyone in your household who is clean may eat them. ¹⁴Every devoted thing in Israel will be yours. ¹⁵Every firstborn of every living thing that they bring to the LORD, whether human or animal, will be yours. But you must redeem every firstborn human, and you are to redeem the firstborn of unclean animals. ¹⁶You are to redeem them from a month old at the set value of about 2 ounces of silver, by the sanctuary standard. ¹⁷But you must not redeem the firstborn of a cow, a sheep or a goat; they are holy. Splash their blood against the altar and turn their fat into smoke as a food offering, a soothing aroma to the LORD. ¹⁸Their meat will be yours, just as the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh are yours. ¹⁹All the holy contributions that the Israelites set aside for the LORD I have given to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent share. It is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD, for you and your descendants with you.” ²⁰The LORD said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, and you will have no portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites.

The tithe for the Levites

²¹To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel as their inheritance, in return for the work they do, the work of the tent of meeting. ²²The Israelites must no longer come near the tent of meeting, or they will bear the guilt of sin and die. ²³It is the Levites who are to do the work of the tent of meeting, and they will bear their guilt. This is a statute for all time, through all your generations. They will have no inheritance among the Israelites.^{c 24}For I have given the Levites as their inheritance the tithe that the Israelites set aside as a contribution to the LORD. That is why I have said of them, ‘They will have no inheritance among the Israelites.’”

A tithe of the tithe

²⁵The LORD spoke to Moses. He said, ²⁶“Speak to the Levites and tell them: ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them as your inheritance, you are to present a contribution from it to the LORD, a tenth of the tithe. ²⁷Your contribution will be counted for you as if it were grain from the threshing floor or the full yield of the winepress. ²⁸In this way you also are to present a contribution to the LORD from all the tithes you receive from the Israelites. From them you are to give the contribution for the LORD to Aaron the priest. ²⁹From all the gifts you receive you are to present every contribution due to the LORD, taking the best of it as the part to be made holy.’ ³⁰Say to them: ‘When you have presented the best of it, the rest will be counted for the Levites as produce from the threshing floor and from the winepress. ³¹You and your households may eat it anywhere, for it is your payment in return for your work at the tent of meeting. ³²Once you have presented the best of it, you will not bear guilt because of it. But you must not profane the holy gifts of the Israelites, or you will die.’”