Beginning
Duties of the Priests and Levites
18 The Lord gave these directions to Aaron:
You, your sons, and your father’s house with you will bear the guilt for any sins in connection with the sanctuary. You and your sons with you will bear the guilt for any sins in connection with your priesthood. 2 Also have your brothers from the tribe of Levi, your father’s tribe, come forward with you so that they may join you and assist you when you and your sons along with you are on duty in front of the Tent of the Testimony. 3 They will perform the duties for you and for the entire tent. However, they are not to go close to the furnishings in the sanctuary or to the altar, so that they and you will not die. 4 They are to join you and perform the duties for the Tent of Meeting, to do all the work at the tent. No unauthorized person is to go near you.
5 You are to perform the duties for the sanctuary and for the altar so that there will not be any more wrath on the Israelites. 6 See, I myself have taken your brothers, the Levites, from among the Israelites. They are a gift to you, given by the Lord, to do the work at the Tent of Meeting. 7 But you and your sons with you will keep watch over your priesthood in connection with everything at the altar and inside the veil. You are to do this work. I am giving you your priesthood as a gift. Any unauthorized person who comes near must be put to death.
Offerings to Support the Priests and Levites
8 The Lord spoke to Aaron. This is what he said:
See, I myself have put you in charge of the elevated offerings made to me. All of the holy things from the Israelites I have given to you as an allotment and to your sons as a permanent right. 9 Part of the most holy things that are not burned in the fire will be yours. Every one of their offerings which they give to me—every one of their grain offerings, every one of their sin offerings, and every one of their restitution offerings—will be most holy for you and your sons. 10 You will eat it as a most holy thing. Every male may eat of it. It will be holy for you.
11 This is yours too: the elevated offerings from their gifts, including all the wave offerings[a] from the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent right. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your house may eat it.
12 All the best oil, all the best wine and grain, the Israelites’ firstfruits which they give to the Lord, I have given them all to you. 13 The first ripe produce from everything that is in their land, all that they bring to the Lord, will be yours. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your house may eat it.
14 Everything permanently devoted by the Israelites will be yours. 15 The firstborn from every living thing, human or animal, whatever they present to the Lord, will be yours. However, you must redeem the firstborn of any human. You must also redeem the firstborn of an unclean animal. 16 When they are one month old, you must redeem them at the set redemption price, five shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.
17 However, you may not redeem the firstborn of the cattle, sheep, or goats. They are set aside as holy. You will splash their blood on the altar and turn their fat into smoke as an offering made by fire, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 18 Their meat will be yours. It will be yours just like the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh. 19 All the elevated offerings of holy things, which the Israelites lift up to the Lord, I have given to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a permanent allotment. It is a permanent covenant of salt[b] before the Lord for you and your descendants with you.
20 The Lord also said these things to Aaron:
You will not have any allotment of land among them in the land, and you will not have any share among them. I am your share and your possession among the people of Israel.
21 See, I have given all the tithes in Israel to the Levites as a possession in return for their work which they are doing, the work at the Tent of Meeting. 22 The Israelites will never again come near the Tent of Meeting. If they do, they will become responsible for sin and die. 23 But the Levites are to do the work at the Tent of Meeting, and they will bear their guilt. It will be a permanent regulation throughout your generations to come: They will not have any possession among the Israelites. 24 For the tithe from the Israelites, which they lift up as an elevated offering for the Lord, I have given to the Levites as a possession. Therefore I have said to them, “They will not have any possession among the Israelites.”
25 The Lord told Moses 26 to speak to the Levites and tell them this:
When you receive from the Israelites the tithe, which I have given to you as your possession, you will lift up an elevated offering from it for the Lord, a tenth of the tithe. 27 Your elevated offering will be credited to you, as if it were grain from the threshing floor and abundance from the winepress. 28 In this way you also are to lift up an elevated offering for the Lord from every one of the tithes which you receive from the Israelites. From the tithes, you will give the elevated offering for the Lord to Aaron the priest. 29 You will lift up every elevated offering for the Lord from the things given to you, from all the best, the holiest part of it.
30 Tell the Levites this:
When you lift up the best part of the offering, it will be credited to the Levites as if it were produce from the threshing floor and the winepress. 31 You may eat it anywhere, with your household, for it is your wages in return for your work at the Tent of Meeting. 32 You will not become responsible for sin in regard to it when you lift up the best part of it. You will not defile the holy things from the Israelites, and you will not die.
Purification Rites
19 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron:
2 These are requirements of the law which the Lord has commanded.
Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without blemish, one that has no defect and that has never been under a yoke. 3 You are to give it to Eleazar the priest. He is to have it taken outside of the camp and slaughtered in his presence. 4 With his finger Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. 5 The heifer is to be burned in his sight. Its hide, flesh, and blood are to be burned along with its manure. 6 The priest will take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn and throw them onto the burning heifer. 7 Then the priest will wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in water. Afterward he will come into the camp, and the priest will be unclean until evening. 8 The one who burns the heifer is to wash his clothing in water and bathe his flesh in water. He will remain unclean until evening.
9 A man who is ceremonially clean is to gather up the heifer’s ashes and place them outside of the camp in a clean place. They will be kept for the Israelite congregation to use to make the water for removing impurity.[c] It is a sin offering. 10 The one who gathers the heifer’s ashes is to wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. This will be a permanent regulation for the Israelites and the aliens residing among them.
11 Whoever touches the body of a dead person will be unclean for seven days. 12 He is to purify himself with the water on the third day, and he will become clean on the seventh day. But if he does not purify himself on the third day, then he will not become clean on the seventh day. 13 Anyone who touches a dead human body but does not purify himself defiles the Lord’s Dwelling. That person must be cut off from Israel. He is unclean, because he has not sprinkled himself with the water for removing impurity. His uncleanness is still on him.
14 This is the law when someone dies in a tent: Everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent will be unclean for seven days. 15 Every open container without a lid on it is unclean.
16 Anyone in the open countryside who touches someone killed by a sword or someone who has died, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
17 For the unclean person, take some of the ashes from the burnt sin offering, put them into a vessel, and add water from a flowing source[d] to the ashes. 18 A ceremonially clean person is to take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the water on the tent, on all the items, and on the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle it on anyone who has touched someone who was killed or someone who has died and on anyone who has touched a grave or a human bone. 19 The ceremonially clean person will sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day. On the seventh day, after the ceremonially clean person has purified the unclean person, that person will wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and he will be clean at evening. 20 But anyone who is unclean and refuses to purify himself will be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for removing impurity was not sprinkled on him, so he remains unclean. 21 This will be a permanent regulation for them. The one who sprinkles the water for removing impurity shall wash his clothing, and whoever touches the water for removing impurity will be unclean until evening.
22 Everything that the unclean person touches will be unclean, and the person who touches those things will be unclean until evening.
The Death of Miriam
20 The people of Israel, the entire community, came to the Wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.
Water From the Rock
2 There was no water for the community, so they assembled together against Moses and Aaron. 3 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! 4 Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? 5 Why have you taken us up out of Egypt to bring us into this horrible place? This place does not have grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates. There is no water to drink!”
6 Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. They fell facedown. The Glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7 The Lord spoke to Moses: 8 “Take the staff and assemble the community. You and Aaron, your brother, speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water. You will bring water for them from the rock and provide water for the community and their livestock.”
9 Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence just as the Lord commanded him. 10 Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels! Must we bring water out of this rock for you?” 11 Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff two times, and a great amount of water gushed out. The congregation and their livestock drank.
12 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough to honor me as holy in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assembly into this land which I have given to them.”
13 These are the waters of Meribah,[e] because there the Israelites quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself to be holy.
Edom Denies Israel Passage
14 Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom to say, “This is what your brother Israel says: You know all the hardship that has come upon us. 15 Our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt for a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our ancestors. 16 When we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. So look, here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory. 17 Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through any field or vineyard. We will not drink water from any well. We will go on the King’s Highway. We will not turn to the right or to the left until we have passed through your territory.”
18 Edom said to him, “You must not pass through our territory, or we will go out to meet you with the sword.”
19 The Israelites said to them, “We will go up on the main road. If we drink your water, we and our herds of livestock, then we will pay for it. Just let us pass through on foot, nothing else.”
20 Edom said, “You will not pass through.” Edom went out to meet them with a large force of many people. 21 Edom refused to give Israel passage through their territory, so Israel turned away from them.
The Death of Aaron
22 The entire community of the Israelites set out from Kadesh and came to Mount Hor. 23 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor along the border of Edom’s territory. He said, 24 “Aaron will be gathered to his people, because he cannot enter into the land which I have given to the Israelites, because you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah. 25 Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up to the top of Mount Hor. 26 Remove Aaron’s garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron will be gathered to his fathers and die there.”
27 Moses did just as the Lord commanded. They went up to the top of Mount Hor in the sight of the entire community. 28 Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron died there on the top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain. 29 When the entire community saw that Aaron had passed away, the entire house of Israel wept for Aaron for thirty days.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.