¹Then the Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your paternal house with you will bear the iniquity of the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you will bear the iniquity of your priesthood. ²And bring your brothers up also, the tribe of Levi, your father's stock, with you, and they will join with you and serve you, as you and your sons with you serve before the tent of the testimony. ³And they will discharge the duties you give them, and the duties of the whole tent, but they will not approach the holy equipment or the altar, so that neither they nor you die. ⁴So they will join with you and discharge the duties of the tent of contact, in respect of all the work of the tent, and no foreigner will approach you. ⁵And you will discharge the duties of the holy place, and the duties of the altar, so that there will not be anger any more at the sons of Israel. ⁶And as for me, look, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the sons of Israel. They are for you a gift given to the Lord to do the work of the tent of contact. ⁷And you and your sons with you will keep your priesthood in every matter of the altar and of the inside of the veil, and you will perform it. I am giving you the work – your priesthood – as a gift. And any foreigner who approaches will be put to death.” ⁸Then the Lord spoke to Aaron and said, “And for my part look, I have given you the duties of my heave-offerings. Regarding all the holy matters of the sons of Israel, I have given them as an anointing to you and your sons, as an age-abiding statute. ⁹This is what will be yours from the holy of holies, from fire: every oblation of theirs, whether every meal-offering of theirs, or every sin-offering of theirs, or every guilt-offering of theirs which they render to me. It is a matter of the holy of holies to you and to your sons. ¹⁰In the holy of holies you will eat it. Every male will eat it. It will be holy to you. ¹¹And this is yours: the heave-offering of their gift with all the wave-offerings of the sons of Israel. I have given them to you and to your sons and your daughters with you, as an age-abiding statute. Everyone who is clean in your house will eat it. ¹²All the best of the new oil, and all the best of the new wine and corn – the firstfruits of them which they give to the Lord – I have given to you. ¹³The firstfruits of everything in their land which they bring to the Lord will be yours. Every clean person in your house will eat it. ¹⁴And every dedicated thing in Israel will be yours. ¹⁵Everything that opens the womb of all flesh which they offer to the Lord, whether of men or cattle, will be yours, but you will most definitely redeem the firstborn of man, and you will redeem the firstborn of unclean cattle. ¹⁶And you will redeem those from one month old who are to be redeemed to him according to your valuation – money to the value of five shekels according to the holy shekel: it is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷But you will not redeem the firstborn ox or the firstborn lamb or the firstborn goat – they are holy. You will sprinkle their blood on the altar, and you will burn their fat as a fire-offering as a sweet fragrance to the Lord. ¹⁸And their meat will be yours. Just like the breast of the wave-offering and the right leg, it will be yours. ¹⁹All heave-offerings of holy things which the sons of Israel heave to the Lord I have given you and your sons and your daughters with you, as an age-abiding statute. It is an age-abiding covenant of salt before the Lord for you and your seed with you.” ²⁰Then the Lord said to Aaron, “You will not have an inheritance in their land, and you will have no portion in their midst – I am your portion and your inheritance among the sons of Israel. ²¹And look, I have given every tithe in Israel to the sons of Levi as an inheritance, in exchange for their work which they do – the work of the tent of contact. ²²And the sons of Israel will no longer approach the tent of contact, which would mean that they would bear mortal sin. ²³And the Levites will do the work of the tent of contact, and they will bear their iniquity. It is an age-abiding statute for their generations, but they will not inherit any inheritance among the sons of Israel. ²⁴For I have given the tithe of the sons of Israel which they heave to the Lord as a heave-offering to the Levites as an inheritance, which is why I have said to them, ‘They will not have an inheritance among the sons of Israel.’ ” ²⁵Then the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ²⁶“And you will speak to the Levites and say to them, ‘When you receive from the sons of Israel the tithe which I have given you from them as your inheritance, you will heave a heave-offering to the Lord from it, a tithe of a tithe. ²⁷And it will be counted for you as your heave-offering, as grain from the threshing floor and as the fulness of the wine vat. ²⁸So you too will offer the Lord's heave-offering from all your tithes which you receive from the sons of Israel, and you will give from it the Lord's heave-offering to Aaron the priest. ²⁹You will offer all the Lord's heave-offering from all your gifts, from all the best of it – the sacred part of it. ³⁰And you will say to them, «When you offer the best part of it, it will be counted for the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and as the produce of the wine vat. ³¹And you will eat it in every place, you and your household, for it is your wages in exchange for your work in the tent of contact. ³²And you will bear no sin on account of it, when you heave up the best part of it, and you will not profane the holy things of the sons of Israel, so that you do not die.» ’ ”