Levítico 21

The holiness of priests

¹The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, Aaron’s sons, and tell them: ‘No priest is to make himself unclean for a dead person among his people, ²unless it is one of his nearest relatives: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, ³or his sister who has never married and so, having no husband, remains close to him. For her he may become unclean. ⁴But as a husband among his people he is not to make himself unclean for his wife’s kin; that would profane him.^{a 5}Priests are not to make bald patches on their heads, shave the edges of their beards, or gash their bodies.^{b 6}They are to be holy to their God and are not to profane the name of their God. It is they who present the LORD’s food offerings, the food of their God, so they are to be holy. ⁷They must not marry a woman who has been a prostitute or who has been defiled, nor a woman divorced from her husband, because each priest is holy to his God.^{c 8}You must treat him as holy, because he presents the food of your God. He is to be holy to you, because I, the LORD, who make you holy, am holy. ⁹A priest’s daughter who profanes herself through prostitution profanes her father. She is to be burned with fire.

The priest who ranks above his brothers

¹⁰The priest who ranks above his brothers has had the anointing oil poured on his head and has been ordained to wear the sacred garments. He must never let his hair hang loose or tear his clothes in grief. ¹¹He is not to go near any dead body, not even his father’s or his mother’s, and so make himself unclean. ¹²He must not leave the sanctuary or profane the sanctuary of his God, because he bears the consecration of his God’s anointing oil. I am the LORD. ¹³He is to take as his wife a woman who is a virgin. ¹⁴A widow, a divorced woman, a woman profaned by prostitution: none of these may he marry. His wife must be a virgin from his own people.^{d 15}Otherwise he would profane his children among his people. I am the LORD; I make him holy.’”

Priests with a physical defect

¹⁶The LORD spoke to Moses. He said, ¹⁷“Tell Aaron: ‘If any of your descendants, in any generation, has a physical defect, he is not to approach to present the food of his God. ¹⁸Any man with a defect is barred from coming near: a blind man or a lame one, a man with a disfigured nose or with a limb too long,^{ef 19}a man with an injured foot or an injured hand, ²⁰a hunchback or a dwarf, a man with something wrong in his eye, with a festering rash or scabs, or with crushed testicles.^{ghi 21}Whoever among the descendants of Aaron the priest has a defect is not to approach to present the LORD’s food offerings. Because of his defect he is not to approach to present the food of his God. ²²He may eat the food of his God, both the most holy offerings and the holy offerings. ²³Yet he is not to go in as far as the curtain or approach the altar, since he has a defect. He must not profane my holy places, for I am the LORD, who makes them holy.’” ²⁴Moses passed on these words to Aaron, to his sons and to all the Israelites.