1   The Lord said to Aaron: You and your sons, together with the members of your father's tribe, shall be fully answerable for the sanctuary. You and your sons alone shall be answerable for your priestly office; 2   but you shall admit your kinsmen of Levi, your father's tribe, to be attached to you and assist you while you and your sons are before the Tent of the Tokens. 3   They shall be in attendance on you and fulfil all the duties of the Tent, but shall not go near the holy vessels and the altar, 4   or they will die and you with them. They shall be attached to you and be responsible for the maintenance of the Tent of the Presence in every detail; no unqualified person shall come near you. 5   You yourselves shall be responsible for the sanctuary and the altar, so that wrath may no more fall on the Israelites. 6   I have myself taken the Levites your kinsmen out of all the Israelites as a gift for you, given to the Lord for the maintenance of the Tent of the Presence. 7   But only you and your sons may fulfil the duties of your priestly office that concern the altar or lie within the Veil. This duty is yours; I bestow on you this gift of priestly service. The unqualified person who intrudes on it shall be put to death.

8   The Lord said to Aaron: I, the Lord, commit to your control the contributions made to me, that is all the holy-gifts of the Israelites.

The journey from Sinai to Edom I give them to you and to your sons for your allotted portion due to you in perpetuity. 9   Out of the most holy gifts kept back from the altar-fire this part shall belong to you: every offering, whether grain-offering, sin-offering, or guilt-offering, rendered to me as a most holy gift, belongs to you and to your sons. 10   You shall eat it as befits most holy gifts; every male may eat it. You shall regard it as holy.

11   This also is yours: the contribution from all such of their gifts as are presented as special gifts by the Israelites. I give them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a due in perpetuity. Every person in your household who is ritually clean may eat them.

12   I give you all the choicest of the oil, the choicest of the new wine and the corn, the firstfruits which are given to the Lord. 13   The first-ripe fruits of all produce in the land which are brought to the Lord shall be yours. Everyone in your household who is clean may eat them.

14   Everything in Israel which has been devoted to God shall be yours.

15   All the first-born of man or beast which are brought to the Lord shall be yours. Notwithstanding, you must accept payment in redemption of any first-born of man and of unclean beasts: 16   at the end of one month you shall redeem it at the fixed price of five shekels of silver by the sacred standard (twenty gerahs to the shekel). 17   You must not, however, allow the redemption of the first-born of a cow, sheep, or goat; they are holy. You shall fling their blood against the altar and burn their fat in sacrifice as a food-offering of soothing odour to the Lord; 18   their flesh shall be yours, as are the breast of the special gift and the right leg.

19   All the contributions from holy-gifts, which the Israelites set aside for the Lord, I give to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a due in perpetuity. This is a perpetual covenant of salt before the Lord with you and your descendants also.

20   The Lord said to Aaron: You shall have no patrimony in the land of Israel, no holding among them; I am your holding in Israel, I am your patrimony.

21   To the Levites I give every tithe in Israel to be their patrimony, in return for the service they render in maintaining the Tent of the Presence. 22   In order that the Israelites may not henceforth approach the Tent and thus incur the penalty of death, 23   the Levites alone shall perform the service of the Tent, and they shall accept the full responsibility for it. This rule is binding on your descendants for all time. They shall have no patrimony among the Israelites, 24   because I give them as their patrimony the tithe which the Israelites set aside as a contribution to the Lord. Therefore I say to them: You shall have no patrimony among the Israelites.

25    26   The Lord spoke to Moses and said, Speak to the Levites in these words: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe which I give you

The journey from Sinai to Edom from them as your patrimony, you shall set aside from it the contribution to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. 27   Your contribution shall count for you as if it were corn from the threshing-floor and juice from the vat. 28   In this way you too shall set aside the contribution due to the Lord out of all tithes which you receive from the Israelites and shall give the Lord's contribution to Aaron the priest. 29   Out of all the gifts you receive you shall set aside the contribution due to the Lord; and the gift which you hallow ^note must be taken from the choicest of them.

30   You shall say to the Levites: When you have set aside the choicest part of your portion, the remainder shall count for you as the produce of the threshing-floor and the winepress, 31   and you may eat it anywhere, you and your households. It is your payment for service in the Tent of the Presence. 32   When you have set aside its choicest part, you will incur no penalty in respect of it, and you will not be profaning the holy-gifts of the Israelites; so you will not die.

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