Leviticus 22:1-16

Revised Standard Version

The Use of Holy Offerings

22 And the Lord said to Moses, ² “Tell Aaron and his sons to keep away from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they may not profane my holy name: I am the Lord. ³ Say to them, ‘If any one of all your descendants throughout your generations approaches the holy things, which the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. ⁴ None of the line of Aaron who is a leper or suffers a discharge may eat of the holy things until he is clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead or a man who has had an emission of semen, ⁵ and whoever touches a creeping thing by which he may be made unclean or a man from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever his uncleanness may be— ⁶ the person who touches any such shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. ⁷ When the sun is down he shall be clean; and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because such are his food. ⁸ That which dies of itself or is torn by beasts he shall not eat, defiling himself by it: I am the Lord.’ ⁹ They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the Lord who sanctify them.

¹⁰ “An outsider shall not eat of a holy thing. A sojourner of the priest’s or a hired servant shall not eat of a holy thing; ¹¹ but if a priest buys a slave as his property for money, the slave may eat of it; and those that are born in his house may eat of his food. ¹² If a priest’s daughter is married to an outsider she shall not eat of the offering of the holy things. ¹³ But if a priest’s daughter is a widow or divorced, and has no child, and returns to her father’s house, as in her youth, she may eat of her father’s food; yet no outsider shall eat of it. ¹⁴ And if a man eats of a holy thing unwittingly, he shall add the fifth of its value to it, and give the holy thing to the priest. ¹⁵ The priests shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they offer to the Lord, ¹⁶ and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt, by eating their holy things: for I am the Lord who sanctify them.”