Chronological

18 And the Lord said to Aaron, You and your sons and your father’s house with you shall bear and remove the iniquity of the sanctuary [that is, the guilt for the offenses which the people unknowingly commit when brought into contact with the manifestations of God’s presence]. And you and your sons with you shall bear and remove the iniquity of your priesthood [your own unintentional offenses].

² And your brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your [fore]father, bring with you, that they may be joined to you and minister to you; but only you and your sons with you shall come before the Tent of the Testimony [into the Holy Place where only priests may go and into the Most Holy Place which only the high priest dares enter].

³ And the Levites shall attend you [as servants] and attend to all the duties of the Tent; only they shall not come near the sacred vessels of the sanctuary or to the brazen altar, that they and also you [Aaron] die not.

⁴ And they shall be joined to you and attend to the duties of the Tent of Meeting—all the [menial] service of the Tent—and no stranger [no layman, anyone who is not a Levite] shall come near you [Aaron and your sons].

⁵ And you shall attend to the duties of the sanctuary and attend to the altar [of burnt offering and the altar of incense], that there be no wrath any more upon the Israelites [as in the incident of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram].^(A)

⁶ And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the Israelites; to you they are a gift, given to the Lord, to do the [menial] service of the Tent of Meeting.

⁷ Therefore you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood for everything of the altar [of burnt offering and the altar of incense] and [of the Holy of Holies] within the veil, and you shall serve. I give you your priesthood as a service of gift. And the stranger [anyone other than Moses or your sons, Aaron] who comes near shall be put to death.^(B)

⁸ And the Lord said to Aaron, And I, behold, I have given you the charge of My heave offerings [whatever is taken out and kept of the offerings made to Me], all the dedicated and consecrated things of the Israelites; to you have I given them [as your portion] and to your sons as a continual allowance forever by reason of your anointing as priests.^(C)

⁹ This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of the people, every cereal offering and sin offering and trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render to Me, shall be most holy for you [Aaron] and for your sons.

¹⁰ As the most holy thing and in a sacred place shall you eat of it; every male [of your house] shall eat of it. It shall be holy to you.^(D)

¹¹ And this also is yours: the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and to your daughters with you as a continual allowance forever; everyone in your house who is [ceremonially] clean may eat of it.

¹² All the best of the oil, and all the best of the [fresh] wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, to you have I given them.

¹³ Whatever is first ripe in the land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. Everyone who is [ceremonially] clean in your house may eat of it.

¹⁴ Every devoted thing in Israel [everything that has been vowed to the Lord] shall be yours.

¹⁵ Everything that first opens the womb in all flesh, which they bring to the Lord, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be yours. Nevertheless the firstborn of man you shall surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts you shall redeem.

¹⁶ And those that are to be redeemed of them, from a month old shall you redeem, according to your estimate [of their age], for the fixed price of five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

¹⁷ But the firstling of a cow or of a sheep or of a goat you shall not redeem. They [as the firstborn of clean beasts belong to God and] are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood upon the altar and shall burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet and soothing odor to the Lord.

¹⁸ And the flesh of them shall be yours, as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are yours.

¹⁹ All the heave offerings [the lifted-out and kept portions] of the holy things which the Israelites give to the Lord I give to you and to your sons and your daughters with you, as a continual debt forever. It is a covenant of salt [that cannot be dissolved or violated] forever before the Lord for you [Aaron] and for your posterity with you.

²⁰ And the Lord said to Aaron, You shall have no inheritance in the land [of the Israelites], neither shall you have any part among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites.

²¹ And, behold, I have given the Levites all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance in return for their service which they serve, the [menial] service of the Tent of Meeting.

²² Henceforth the Israelites shall not come near the Tent of Meeting [the covered sanctuary, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies], lest they incur guilt and die.

²³ But the Levites shall do the [menial] service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear and remove the iniquity of the people [that is, be answerable for the legal pollutions of the holy things and offer the necessary atonements for unintentional offenses in these matters]. It shall be a statute forever in all your generations, that among the Israelites the Levites have no inheritance [of land].

²⁴ But the tithes of the Israelites, which they present as an offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites to inherit; therefore I have said to them, Among the Israelites they shall have no inheritance. [They have homes and cities and pasturage to use but not to possess as their personal inheritance.]

²⁵ And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁶ Moreover, you shall say to the Levites, When you take from the Israelites the tithe which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present an offering from it to the Lord, even a tenth of the tithe [paid by the people].

²⁷ And what you lift out and keep [your heave offering] shall be credited to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor or as the fully ripe produce of the vine.

²⁸ Likewise you shall also present an offering to the Lord of all your tithes which you receive from the Israelites; and therefore you shall give this heave offering [lifted out and kept] for the Lord to Aaron the priest.

²⁹ Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every offering due to the Lord, of all the best of it, even the hallowed part lifted out and held back out of it [for the Levites].

³⁰ Therefore you shall say to them, When you have lifted out and held back the best from it [and presented it to the Lord by giving it to yourselves, the Levites], then it shall be counted to [you] the Levites just as if it were the increase of the threshing floor or of the winepress.

³¹ And you may eat it in every place, you and your households, for it is your reward for your service in the Tent of Meeting.

³² And you shall be guilty of no sin by reason of it when you have lifted out and held back the best of it; neither shall you have polluted the holy things of the Israelites, neither shall you die [because of it].

19 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

² This is the ritual of the law which the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without spot, in which is no blemish, upon which a yoke has never come.

³ And you shall give her to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring her outside the camp, and she shall be slaughtered before him.

⁴ Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger and sprinkle it toward the front of the Tent of Meeting seven times.

⁵ The heifer shall be burned in his sight, her skin, flesh, blood, and dung.

⁶ And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet [stuff] and cast them into the midst of the burning heifer.

⁷ Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; afterward he shall come into the camp, but he shall be unclean until evening.

⁸ He who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening.

⁹ And a man who is clean shall collect the ashes of the heifer and put them outside the camp in a clean place, and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for the water for impurity; it is a sin offering.

¹⁰ And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until evening. This shall be to the Israelites and to the stranger who sojourns among them a perpetual statute.

¹¹ He who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

¹² He shall purify himself with the water for impurity [made with the ashes of the burned heifer] on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

¹³ Whoever touches the corpse of any who has died and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still upon him.

¹⁴ This is the law when a man dies in a tent: all who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.

¹⁵ And every open vessel, which has no covering fastened upon it, is unclean.

¹⁶ And whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a dead man, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

¹⁷ And for the unclean, they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering, and the running water shall be put with it in a vessel.

¹⁸ And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the naturally dead, or the grave.

¹⁹ And the clean person shall sprinkle [the water for purification] upon the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day the unclean man shall purify himself, and wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening.

²⁰ But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for purification has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

²¹ And it shall be a perpetual statute to them. He who sprinkles the water for impurity [upon another] shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.

²² And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.

20 And the Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the Wilderness of Zin in the first month. And the people dwelt in Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there.

² Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled together against Moses and Aaron.

³ And the people contended with Moses, and said, Would that we had died when our brethren died [in the plague] before the Lord!^(E)

⁴ And why have you brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, we and our livestock?

⁵ And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us into this evil place? It is no place of grain or of figs or of vines or of pomegranates. And there is no water to drink.

⁶ Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to them.

⁷ And the Lord said to Moses,

⁸ Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to give forth its water, and you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink.

⁹ So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as He commanded him.

¹⁰ And Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation before the rock and Moses said to them, Hear now, you rebels; must we bring you water out of this rock?

¹¹ And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock ^[a]twice. And the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.

¹² And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in (rely on, cling to) Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Israelites, you therefore ^[b]shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.^(F)

¹³ These are the waters of Meribah [strife], where the Israelites contended with the Lord and He showed Himself holy among them.

¹⁴ And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying, Thus says your kinsman Israel: You know all the adversity and birth pangs that have come upon us [as a nation]:

¹⁵ How our fathers went down to Egypt; we dwelt there a long time, and the Egyptians dealt evilly with us and our fathers.

¹⁶ But when we cried to the Lord, He heard us and sent an angel and brought us forth out of Egypt. Now behold, we are in Kadesh, a city on your country’s edge.

¹⁷ Let us pass, I pray you, through your country. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink of the water of the wells. We will go along the king’s highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed your borders.

¹⁸ But Edom said to him, You shall not go through, lest I come out against you with the sword.

¹⁹ And the Israelites said to him, We will go by the highway, and if I and my livestock drink of your water, I will pay for it. Only let me pass through on foot, nothing else.

²⁰ But Edom said, You shall not go through. And Edom came out against Israel with many people and a strong hand.

²¹ Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, ^[c]so Israel turned away from him.

²² They journeyed from Kadesh, and the Israelites, even the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

²³ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor, on the border of the land of Edom,

²⁴ Aaron shall be gathered to his people. For he shall not enter the land which I have given to the Israelites, because you both rebelled against My instructions at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵ Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up to Mount Hor.

²⁶ Strip Aaron of his vestments and put them on Eleazar his son, and Aaron shall be gathered to his people, and shall die there.

²⁷ And Moses did as the Lord commanded; and they went up Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

²⁸ And Moses stripped Aaron of his [priestly] garments and put them on Eleazar his son. And Aaron died there on the mountain top; and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

²⁹ When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept and mourned for him thirty days, all the house of Israel.