Leviticus 21:1-15

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

The Holiness of Priests

21 The Lord said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them:

No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his relatives, ² except for his nearest kin: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother; ³ likewise, for a virgin sister, close to him because she has had no husband, he may defile himself for her. ⁴ But he shall not defile himself as a husband among his people and so profane himself. ⁵ They shall not make bald spots upon their heads, or shave off the edges of their beards, or make any gashes in their flesh. ⁶ They shall be holy to their God, and not profane the name of their God; for they offer the Lord’s offerings by fire, the food of their God; therefore they shall be holy. ⁷ They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled; neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband. For they are holy to their God, ⁸ and you shall treat them as holy, since they offer the food of your God; they shall be holy to you, for I the Lord, I who sanctify you, am holy. ⁹ When the daughter of a priest profanes herself through prostitution, she profanes her father; she shall be burned to death.

¹⁰ The priest who is exalted above his fellows, on whose head the anointing-oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the vestments, shall not dishevel his hair, nor tear his vestments. ¹¹ He shall not go where there is a dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or mother. ¹² He shall not go outside the sanctuary and thus profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing-oil of his God is upon him: I am the Lord. ¹³ He shall marry only a woman who is a virgin. ¹⁴ A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, a prostitute, these he shall not marry. He shall marry a virgin of his own kin, ¹⁵ that he may not profane his offspring among his kin; for I am the Lord; I sanctify him.