⁹ Then Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying, “Keep silence and hear, O Israel! This very day you have become the people of the Lord your God.^(A)

¹⁰ Therefore obey the Lord your God, observing his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today.”

⁹ Have you not driven out the priests of the Lord, the descendants of Aaron, and the Levites and made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to be consecrated with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of what are no gods.^(A)

The Levitical Priests

¹⁵ “But the Levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me, and they shall attend me to offer me the fat and the blood, says the Lord God.^(A)

¹⁶ It is they who shall enter my sanctuary; it is they who shall approach my table to minister to me, and they shall keep my charge.

⁸ they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ”^(A)

^32 [a]You must diligently observe everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it.^(A)

²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.^(A)

13 ¹ And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names.^(A)