Numbers 8:14-19

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

¹⁴ Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the other Israelites, and the Levites shall be mine. ¹⁵ Thereafter the Levites may go in to perform service at the tent of meeting, once you have cleansed them and presented them as an elevation-offering. ¹⁶ For they are unreservedly given to me from among the Israelites; I have taken them for myself, in place of all that open the womb, the firstborn of all the Israelites. ¹⁷ For all the firstborn among the Israelites are mine, both human and animal. On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I consecrated them for myself, ¹⁸ but I have taken the Levites in place of all the firstborn among the Israelites. ¹⁹ Moreover, I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites, to do the service for the Israelites at the tent of meeting, and to make atonement for the Israelites, in order that there may be no plague among the Israelites for coming too close to the sanctuary.