Beginning
The work of the priests and the Levites
18 The Lord said to Aaron, ‘You and your sons and your family will be guilty for any wrong thing that happens in my Holy Tent. You and your sons will be guilty for any wrong thing that a priest does. 2 Bring the people of your tribe, the Levites, to the Tent of Meeting. 3 They must take care of the Tent of Meeting on your behalf. You must tell them what they should do. They must not go near anything that is inside God's Holy Place or the altar. If they do, they will die, and you will die too. 4 The Levites must work with you as they take care of the Tent of Meeting. No other people have authority to come near you as you work there.
5 You must take care of God's Holy Place and the altar. Then I will not be angry with the Israelites again. 6 I have chosen your family, the Levites, from among the other Israelite tribes. They are the Lord's gift to you, to help you take care of the Tent of Meeting. 7 But only you, Aaron, and your sons will serve me as priests. You will work at the altar and in the Holy Place behind the curtain. I have chosen you to serve me as my priests. That is my gift to you. Any other person who comes near the Holy Place must die.’
Offerings for priests and for Levites
8 The Lord said to Aaron, ‘I give you authority over the things that people offer to me. As priests, part of the gifts that people bring will belong to you and your sons. This rule will always be true for you and your descendants. 9 I am giving to you the parts that do not burn on the altar. A part of all these gifts will belong to you: grain offerings, sin offerings and guilt offerings. These are holy gifts and they belong to you and to your sons. 10 All the men in your family may eat these gifts. Remember that they are holy gifts.
11 Also, you will receive part of the special gifts that the Israelites lift up in front of me. I have given it to you and to your sons and daughters, for all time. Every person who lives in your house may eat it. But they must be clean at the time.
12 I will give to you the best olive oil, the best wine and the best grain. The people give to the Lord the first part of these that they get. 13 I also give to you the best parts of the food that people bring to the Lord. Any clean person who lives in your house may eat them.
14 Everything in Israel that should belong to me is now yours. 15 I give to you every firstborn animal and male child that people offer to the Lord. But you must pay the price for every firstborn son and for every firstborn male animal that is not clean. 16 When they are one month old, you must buy them from me for five shekels of silver each. The shekel must have the same weight as the shekel that the Levites use in God's Holy Tent. There are 20 gerahs in one shekel.
17 You must not pay for the firstborn of a cow, a sheep or a goat. Those animals are holy. Splash the blood from those animals on the altar and burn the fat from them. The smell will make the Lord happy. 18 And the meat of those animals belongs to you. In the same way, the meat of the ribs and the right back leg of the special gifts that you lift up to me also belong to you.[a]
19 I have given all the gifts that the Israelites offer to the Lord to you, your sons and your daughters. That is a rule for all time. That is the Lord's special promise to you and to your descendants for all time.’
20 Then the Lord said to Aaron, ‘You priests and your descendants will have no land, like the other tribes do. You will not share in the things that they receive. I myself am the gift that you receive.
21 The Israelites give to me one tenth of everything that they receive. I will give it to the Levites because they serve me in the Tent of Meeting. 22 The other Israelites must not come near the Tent of Meeting again. If they do come near it, they will be guilty and then they will die. 23 Only the Levites must do the work in the Tent of Meeting. And if they do anything wrong there, they will be guilty. That will be a rule for you and for all your descendants. The Levites will not receive any land like the other Israelites do. 24 That is because I have given to the Levites the tithes that the Israelites offer to the Lord. I have told them, “You will not receive any land, like the other Israelites do.” I have given the tithes to them instead.’
25 The Lord said to Moses, 26 ‘You must say to the Levites, “You will receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given to you from them. I have not given any land to you. I have given the tithes to you instead. When you receive those tithes, you must offer one tenth of it to the Lord. That will be a tithe of the tithe. 27 This gift will be the same as when a farmer is giving grain or wine to me. It will be special. 28 So you will give something to the Lord from the tithes that you receive from the Israelites. You must give that part to Aaron the priest. 29 From all the gifts that the people give to you, you must make separate every offering that the Lord should have. The best part of each gift is the part that you must make separate for the Lord.”
30 You must say to the Levites, “After you have made the best part of the gift separate for the priests, the other part will belong to the Levites. That will be the grain and the wine that you receive for your food. 31 That is what you receive because you take care of the Tent of Meeting. You and your family may eat it anywhere that you choose. 32 You will not be guilty when you eat it. That is because you have offered the best part of it to God. But you must do that in the right way. The gifts that you receive from the Israelites are holy. If you do not do the right things with them, you will die.” ’
Water that makes people clean
19 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 2 ‘This is another rule in the Lord's law that I am telling to you: Tell the Israelites that they must bring to you a young red cow. It must not have anything wrong with it. And nobody must have put a yoke on it. 3 They must take the cow outside the camp. They must kill it and then give it to Eleazar the priest. 4 Eleazar must take some of the blood from the cow. He must splash it seven times in front of the Tent of Meeting. 5 Then they must burn the whole cow while Eleazar is watching. They must burn its body with the skin, meat, blood and everything that is inside its body. 6 The priest must take some wood, some plants and some red wool. He must throw them on the fire. 7 Then he must wash his clothes and he must wash his body with water. After that, he can come into the camp, but he will not be clean until the evening. 8 And the man who burns the animal must also wash his clothes in water. And he must wash his body in water. He will not be clean until the evening.
9 Then a man who is clean must pick up all the ashes of the cow. And he must put them outside the camp in a clean place. Keep them safe there for all the Israelites. You must mix them with water to make special water. It will be water for someone who is not clean to make them holy again. It is water to remove sin. 10 The man who picks up the ashes must also wash his clothes. He will not be clean until evening. This rule is for the Israelites and for all the people who are living with them.
11 Any person who touches a dead body will not be clean for seven days. 12 He must use the water to wash himself on the third day and on the seventh day. Then he will be clean. If he does not wash himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean. 13 A person might touch the body of a dead person. If he does not make himself clean, he has made the Lord's Tent of Meeting unclean. You must make that person separate from the Israelites. Because they did not splash the special water on him, he will not be clean. He will continue to be unclean.
14 This is the rule when a person dies in a tent. Any person who is in the tent will not be clean for seven days. 15 Any pot in the tent that does not have a lid will not be clean.
16 Also, a person might have killed someone with a sword out in the country. Or someone may have died because he was old or ill. Anyone who touches a dead body in the country will become unclean for seven days. Also if they touch a human bone, or a grave, that person will be unclean for seven days.
17 Then for the person who is not clean, you must take some of the ashes of the young red cow. That is the cow to make people clean. You must put these ashes into a pot and you must mix them with water from a river. 18 Then a person who is clean must take hyssop. He must put it into the water. Then he must use it to splash the water on the tent and on everything that is in it. He must also splash the water on all the people who have been there. And he must splash it on the person who touched the bone or the dead body or the grave. 19 And the clean person must splash the water on the unclean person on the third day too. And he must do it on the seventh day. On the seventh day he will make the person clean again. Then the person who had not been clean must wash his clothes. And he must wash himself in water. In the evening, that person will become clean. 20 The person who is not clean might not wash himself and his clothes. If he does not do it, you must make that person separate from the people. That is because he has made the Lord's Holy Place become unclean. Because the priest did not splash special water on him he will not be clean. 21 This rule is for now and for ever. The man who splashes the special water must also wash his clothes. Any person who touches the special water will not be clean until evening. 22 If an unclean person touches anything, that thing also becomes unclean. If anyone touches the unclean person, he also becomes unclean until evening.’
Water comes from a rock
20 In the first month, the Israelites came to the Zin desert. They put up their tents at Kadesh. Miriam died there and the people buried her.
2 The people did not have any water to drink. They complained to Moses and Aaron. 3 They said to Moses, ‘We would rather be dead! When the Lord killed our brothers, he should have killed us too. 4 We are the Lord's people. Have you brought us and our animals here to die? 5 You should not have brought us to this very bad place. When we were in Egypt, we had grain, figs, grapes and pomegranates. There is no food like that here! And there is no water to drink!’
6 Moses and Aaron went away from the people to the door of the Tent of Meeting. They threw themselves down with their faces towards the ground. The glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7 The Lord said to Moses, 8 ‘Get the stick. Take your brother Aaron with you and go to the whole group of the Israelites. Then speak to that rock that you can all see. Water will pour out from it. Then the people and their animals can drink it.’
9 So Moses did what the Lord had told him. He took the stick from its place in the Lord's Tent of Meeting. 10 Then Moses and Aaron brought all the people to meet in front of the rock. Moses said to them, ‘Listen now, you people who refuse to obey God. It seems that we must bring water out of this rock for you!’ 11 Moses lifted up his arm. He hit the rock twice with his stick. Water poured out from the rock. The people and their animals drank the water.
12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘You did not trust me enough to show the Israelites that I am holy. So you will not lead them into the land that I have promised to give to them.’
13 The place where this happened was called ‘Meribah’, because the Israelites quarrelled with the Lord there.[b] But he showed them there that he was their holy God.
The Israelites want to travel through Edom
14 From Kadesh, Moses sent men to the king of Edom with this message: ‘We are Israelites, your relatives. We should be friendly to each other. You know about all the troubles that have happened to us. 15 Our ancestors went to Egypt. We lived there for many years. The people in Egypt were cruel to us. 16 But when we asked the Lord to help us, he heard us. He sent an angel and he brought us out from Egypt.
Now we are here at Kadesh, which is a town at the border of your land. 17 Please let us travel through your land. We will not go through any fields or through any vineyards. We will not even drink water from your wells. We will go along the main road. We will not leave that road on either side until we have gone through all your land.’
18 The king of Edom said, ‘You must not travel through my country. If you do, we will bring our army to attack you.’
19 The Israelites replied, ‘We will stay on the main road. If our animals drink your water, we will pay for it. We only want to travel through your country. We do not want anything else.’
20 The king of Edom said, ‘No, you must not travel through our country.’ He sent many strong soldiers to attack the Israelites. 21 In that way, the Edomites stopped the Israelites from travelling through Edom. So the Israelites turned away from there.
Aaron dies
22 All the Israelites went from Kadesh to Hor mountain. 23 When they were there, at the border of Edom's land, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron. 24 He said, ‘Aaron will soon die. He will not go in to the land that I am giving to the Israelites. That is because you both refused to obey me at Meribah. 25 Moses, you must take Aaron and his son Eleazar to climb up Hor mountain. 26 Take the priest's clothes from Aaron and put them on Eleazar. Aaron will die there.’
27 Moses did what the Lord told him to do. Moses, Aaron and Eleazar climbed up Hor mountain, while the Israelites watched. 28 Moses took the priest's clothes from Aaron and he put them on Eleazar. Then Aaron died there, at the top of the mountain. Moses and Eleazar walked back down the mountain.[c] 29 The Israelites wept for 30 days because Aaron died.
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