The Inheritance of the Levites
18 The priests, who are Levites, as well as the whole tribe of Levi, will not have any allotted inheritance with Israel. They will eat from the offerings made to the Lord by fire,[a] which is their inheritance.
2 So they will not have an inheritance among their brothers. The Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.
3 This then will be the prescribed allotment for the priests from the people who offer sacrifices, whether an ox or a sheep: They are to give to the priests the shoulder, both cheeks, and the stomach. 4 You are also to give them the firstfruits from your grain, your new wine, your fresh oil, and the first fleece from your flock. 5 For the Lord your God has chosen them from all of your tribes to stand in service in the name of the Lord—them and their sons for all time.
6 When a Levite comes from any of your towns throughout Israel where he resides, and whenever he follows his heart’s desire and comes to the place that the Lord will choose, 7 and he serves in the name of the Lord your God, standing there before the Lord like all of his fellow Levites, 8 then he may eat the same portion, regardless of any income he received from selling family property.
9 When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to practice anything like the abominations of those nations. 10 Let no one be found among you who makes his son or his daughter pass through fire, or who uses divination, or who engages in fortune telling, or who observes omens, or who practices witchcraft, 11 or who casts a magic spell, or who consults a ghost or a familiar spirit, or who inquires of the dead.[b]
12 Anyone doing these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
13 You are to be blameless with the Lord your God.
14 It is true that those nations whose land you are taking listen to fortune tellers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not permitted you to do things like that.
The Prophet
15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brother Israelites. Listen to him.
16 That is exactly what you asked from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly. You said, “Do not let me hear the voice of the Lord my God anymore, and do not let me see this great fire again, or I will die.”
17 Then the Lord said to me, “They have done well by saying what they said. 18 I will raise up a prophet for them from among their brothers, like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them everything that I command him. 19 Anyone who will not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. 20 Any prophet who presumes to speak something in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks something in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.”
21 What if you ask yourselves, “How can we know that the Lord has not spoken that word?” 22 If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not come about and does not come true, the Lord has not spoken that word. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.[c]
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 18:1 Or from the food offerings
- Deuteronomy 18:11 The distinctions between all these classes of occult practitioners are uncertain.
- Deuteronomy 18:22 Or it