Numbers 18:8-19

Common English Bible

The priests’ compensation

⁸ The Lord spoke to Aaron: I now place you in charge of my gifts, including all the Israelites’ sacred offerings. I have given them to you and your sons as an allowance. This is a permanent regulation. ⁹ This is what belongs to you from the most holy offerings, from the offerings by fire: all their offerings, including their grain offerings, their purification offerings, and their compensation offerings. The most holy offerings that they bring to me will be yours and your sons’. ¹⁰ You will eat it as a most holy thing. Every male may eat it. It will be holy to you. ¹¹ This will also belong to you, your sons, and your daughters: I’m giving you the gift offerings and all the Israelites’ uplifted offerings. This is a permanent regulation. Anyone who is clean in your household may eat it. ¹² All the choice oil, new wine, and the grain’s first harvest that they give to the Lord, I’m giving to you. ¹³ The early produce of everything in their land, which they bring to the Lord, will be yours. Anyone who is clean in your household may eat it. ¹⁴ Everything that is devoted to the Lord in Israel will be yours. ¹⁵ Any oldest male from the womb of any living thing that is presented to the Lord, whether human or animal, will be yours. However, you will redeem the oldest males of humans and of unclean animals. ¹⁶ Their redemption price from one month of age you will calculate at five shekels of silver according to the sanctuary shekel, which is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷ But the oldest offspring of a cow, sheep, or goat you may not redeem. They are holy. You must dash their blood on the altar and turn their fat into smoke for a soothing smell to the Lord. ¹⁸ But their meat is yours. It will be yours just as the breast of the uplifted offering and the right thigh are yours. ¹⁹ All the holy gift offerings that the Israelites raise to the Lord I have given to you, your sons, and your daughters. This is a permanent regulation. It is a covenant of salt forever in the Lord’s presence, for you and your descendants.