Numbers 18 - Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)

Duties of the Priests and Levites

18 The Lord gave these directions to Aaron:

You, your sons, and your father’s house with you will bear the guilt for any sins in connection with the sanctuary. You and your sons with you will bear the guilt for any sins in connection with your priesthood. ² Also have your brothers from the tribe of Levi, your father’s tribe, come forward with you so that they may join you and assist you when you and your sons along with you are on duty in front of the Tent of the Testimony. ³ They will perform the duties for you and for the entire tent. However, they are not to go close to the furnishings in the sanctuary or to the altar, so that they and you will not die. ⁴ They are to join you and perform the duties for the Tent of Meeting, to do all the work at the tent. No unauthorized person is to go near you.

⁵ You are to perform the duties for the sanctuary and for the altar so that there will not be any more wrath on the Israelites. ⁶ See, I myself have taken your brothers, the Levites, from among the Israelites. They are a gift to you, given by the Lord, to do the work at the Tent of Meeting. ⁷ But you and your sons with you will keep watch over your priesthood in connection with everything at the altar and inside the veil. You are to do this work. I am giving you your priesthood as a gift. Any unauthorized person who comes near must be put to death.

Offerings to Support the Priests and Levites

⁸ The Lord spoke to Aaron. This is what he said:

See, I myself have put you in charge of the elevated offerings made to me. All of the holy things from the Israelites I have given to you as an allotment and to your sons as a permanent right. ⁹ Part of the most holy things that are not burned in the fire will be yours. Every one of their offerings which they give to me—every one of their grain offerings, every one of their sin offerings, and every one of their restitution offerings—will be most holy for you and your sons. ¹⁰ You will eat it as a most holy thing. Every male may eat of it. It will be holy for you.

¹¹ This is yours too: the elevated offerings from their gifts, including all the wave offerings^[a] from the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent right. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your house may eat it.

¹² All the best oil, all the best wine and grain, the Israelites’ firstfruits which they give to the Lord, I have given them all to you. ¹³ The first ripe produce from everything that is in their land, all that they bring to the Lord, will be yours. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your house may eat it.

¹⁴ Everything permanently devoted by the Israelites will be yours. ¹⁵ The firstborn from every living thing, human or animal, whatever they present to the Lord, will be yours. However, you must redeem the firstborn of any human. You must also redeem the firstborn of an unclean animal. ¹⁶ When they are one month old, you must redeem them at the set redemption price, five shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.

¹⁷ However, you may not redeem the firstborn of the cattle, sheep, or goats. They are set aside as holy. You will splash their blood on the altar and turn their fat into smoke as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹⁸ Their meat will be yours. It will be yours just like the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh. ¹⁹ All the elevated offerings of holy things, which the Israelites lift up to the Lord, I have given to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent allotment. It is a permanent covenant of salt^[b] before the Lord for you and your descendants with you.

²⁰ The Lord also said these things to Aaron:

You will not have any allotment of land among them in the land, and you will not have any share among them. I am your share and your possession among the people of Israel.

²¹ See, I have given all the tithes in Israel to the Levites as a possession in return for their work which they are doing, the work at the Tent of Meeting. ²² The Israelites will never again come near the Tent of Meeting. If they do, they will become responsible for sin and die. ²³ But the Levites are to do the work at the Tent of Meeting, and they will bear their guilt. It will be a permanent regulation throughout your generations to come: They will not have any possession among the Israelites. ²⁴ For the tithe from the Israelites, which they lift up as an elevated offering for the Lord, I have given to the Levites as a possession. Therefore I have said to them, “They will not have any possession among the Israelites.”

²⁵ The Lord told Moses ²⁶ to speak to the Levites and tell them this:

When you receive from the Israelites the tithe, which I have given to you as your possession, you will lift up an elevated offering from it for the Lord, a tenth of the tithe. ²⁷ Your elevated offering will be credited to you, as if it were grain from the threshing floor and abundance from the winepress. ²⁸ In this way you also are to lift up an elevated offering for the Lord from every one of the tithes which you receive from the Israelites. From the tithes, you will give the elevated offering for the Lord to Aaron the priest. ²⁹ You will lift up every elevated offering for the Lord from the things given to you, from all the best, the holiest part of it.

³⁰ Tell the Levites this:

When you lift up the best part of the offering, it will be credited to the Levites as if it were produce from the threshing floor and the winepress. ³¹ You may eat it anywhere, with your household, for it is your wages in return for your work at the Tent of Meeting. ³² You will not become responsible for sin in regard to it when you lift up the best part of it. You will not defile the holy things from the Israelites, and you will not die.

Footnotes

1. Numbers 18:11 Elevating and waving refer to the gestures with which the offerings were presented. See verse 24.
2. Numbers 18:19 The significance of the salt of the covenant is not explained in the Bible.