² So bring with you also your brothers of the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, in order that they may be joined to you and serve you while you and your sons with you are in front of the tent of the covenant.^(A)

³⁴ Again she conceived and bore a son and said, “Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons”; therefore he was named Levi.^[a](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 They took their accustomed posts according to the law of Moses the man of God; the priests dashed the blood that they received^[a] from the hands of the Levites.^(A)

³⁹ And he left the priest Zadok and his kindred the priests before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place that was at Gibeon,^{(A) 40} to offer burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly, morning and evening, according to all that is written in the law of the Lord that he commanded Israel.^(B)

⁴ They are attached to you in order to perform the duties of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the tent; no outsider shall approach you.^(A)

⁷ So Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the covenant.^(A)

⁴⁰ a reminder to the Israelites that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, shall approach to offer incense before the Lord, so as not to become like Korah and his congregation, just as the Lord had said to him through Moses.^(A)

²² Thereafter the Levites went in to do their service in the tent of meeting in attendance on Aaron and his sons. As the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did with them.

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.”^(A)