Numbers 18

The LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father's household with you shall bear the guilt connected with the sanctuary; you and your sons with you shall bear the guilt connected with your priesthood. Bring your brothers also, the tribe of Levi, your father's tribe, near with you, so that they may be joined to you and serve you. You and your sons with you shall be before the tent of the Testimony. They shall keep your charge and the charge of the whole tent, but they must not draw near to the sanctuary furnishings or the altar, so that neither they nor you die. They shall be joined to you and keep charge of the Tent of Meeting, all the service of the tent. No unauthorized person shall draw near to you. You shall keep charge of the sanctuary and charge of the altar, so that wrath no longer comes upon the Israelites. Look, I myself have taken your brothers the Levites from among the Israelites. They are a gift to you, given to the LORD to perform the service of the Tent of Meeting. You and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood in everything concerning the altar and what is within the veil, and you shall serve. I give you your priesthood as a service granted as a gift. Any unauthorized person who draws near must be put to death.” The LORD spoke to Aaron, “Look, I myself have given you charge of my raised offerings. From all the sacred gifts of the Israelites I have given them to you as a consecrated portion, and to your sons, as a perpetual statute. This shall be yours from the most holy things reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, all their grain offerings, all their sin offerings, and all their guilt offerings that they render to me. They are most holy for you and your sons. You shall eat it as something most holy. Every male shall eat it; it shall be holy to you. This also shall be yours: the raised offering of their gifts, with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given them to you and your sons and your daughters with you as a perpetual statute. Everyone clean in your household may eat it. All the best of the oil, and all the best of the new wine and grain, their first portions that they give to the LORD, I have given to you. The firstfruits of everything in their land that they bring to the LORD shall be yours. Everyone clean in your household may eat it. Everything irrevocably devoted in Israel shall be yours. Every firstborn that opens the womb, of all flesh that they present to the LORD, both human and animal, shall be yours. But you must certainly ransom the human firstborn, and you must ransom the firstborn of unclean animals. You shall ransom those to be ransomed from one month old, according to your valuation, for about two ounces of silver by the sanctuary shekel, which is twenty gerahs. But the firstborn of an ox, the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat you must not ransom. They are holy. You shall dash their blood against the altar and turn their fat into smoke as an offering by fire, a pleasing aroma to the LORD. Their flesh shall be yours; like the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh, it shall be yours. All the raised offerings of the holy things that the Israelites raise to the LORD I have given to you, your sons, and your daughters with you, as a perpetual statute. It is a perpetual covenant of salt before the LORD for you and your offspring with you.” The LORD said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, nor shall you have a portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites. Look, I have given all the tithe in Israel to the descendants of Levi as an inheritance in return for the service they perform, the service of the Tent of Meeting. The Israelites must no longer draw near to the Tent of Meeting, lest they bear sin and die. The Levites themselves shall perform the service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. They shall inherit no inheritance among the Israelites, for I have given to the Levites as an inheritance the tithe of the Israelites that they raise to the LORD as a raised offering. Therefore I have said to them, ‘They shall inherit no inheritance among the Israelites.’” The LORD spoke to Moses and said, “Speak to the Levites and tell them, ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe I have given you from them as your inheritance, you shall raise from it the LORD's raised offering, a tithe of the tithe. Your raised offering shall be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor and as the full produce of the winepress. Thus you also shall raise the LORD's raised offering from all your tithes that you receive from the Israelites. From it you shall give the LORD's raised offering to Aaron the priest. From all your gifts you shall raise every raised offering of the LORD, from all the best of it, its consecrated portion.’ Tell them, ‘When you raise the best of it from it, it shall be reckoned to the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and the produce of the winepress. You may eat it in any place, you and your household, for it is your wages in return for your service in the Tent of Meeting. You shall bear no sin because of it when you have raised the best of it from it. You must not profane the holy things of the Israelites, and you shall not die.’”

Rights and attribution