¹Then he brought me back through the gate of the outer sanctuary, which faces east, and it was shut. ²And the Lord said to me, “This gate will be shut. It shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel enters by it, so it shall be shut. ³But as for the prince, it is the prince who will sit in it to eat bread before the Lord. He will come in through the portico of the gate, and he will go out through it.” ⁴Then he brought me through the northern gate to the front of the house, and I looked, and I saw that the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord, and I fell face down. ⁵Then the Lord said to me, “Son of Adam, take note, and see with your eyes, and hear with your ears everything that I am saying to you concerning all the statutes of the house of the Lord and its whole law, and take note of the entrance to the house, with all the exits of the sanctuary. ⁶And you shall say to the rebels – to the house of Israel – ‘This is what my Lord the Lord says: «You have committed more than enough abominations, O house of Israel, ⁷because you have brought foreigners in, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in the flesh, for them to be in my sanctuary, profaning it, namely my house, when you offered my bread, fat and blood. So they broke my covenant with all your abominations. ⁸And you have not kept the charge of my holy things, but you have put the keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for your own ends.» ⁹This is what my Lord the Lord says: «No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart or uncircumcised in the flesh shall enter into my sanctuary – none of all the foreigners who are among the sons of Israel, ¹⁰but it is rather the Levites, who have become distant from me, with Israel going astray when they strayed from me, going after their idols. And they will bear their iniquity. ¹¹But they will be ministering in my sanctuary, having been given charge of the gates of the house, and serving the house. They will slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they will stand before them, to minister to them, ¹²because they ministered to them before their idols, and they were an iniquitous stumbling block to the house of Israel, which is why I have raised my hand against them, says the Lord, the Lord, and they will bear their iniquity. ¹³But they shall not come near to me to officiate as a priest to me, nor to come near to any of my holy things in the holy of holies, and they will bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. ¹⁴But I will appoint them as keepers of the charge of the house in all its operations, and everything that is done in it. ¹⁵But the Levite priests who are the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the sons of Israel strayed from me – will come near to me to serve me, and they will stand before me to offer fat and blood to me, says the Lord, the Lord. ¹⁶They shall come into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to serve me, and they will keep my charge. ¹⁷And it will come to pass, when they come to the gates of the inner court, that they will wear linen clothes, and no wool will come on them when they minister at the gates of the inner court and inside. ¹⁸They shall have linen turbans on their heads, and they shall have linen trousers around their waist. They shall not gird themselves with anything causing sweat. ¹⁹And when they go out to the outer court – to the outer court to where the people are – they shall take off the clothes in which they minister and put them in the holy annexes, and they shall wear different clothes, and they shall not sanctify the people in their ordinary clothes. ²⁰And they shall not shave their heads, but they shall not let the locks of their hair hang down. They shall certainly trim the hair on their heads. ²¹And no priest shall drink wine when they go into inner court. ²²And they shall not take a widow or a divorcee as their wives, but rather a virgin of the seed of the house of Israel, but they can take a widow who is a priest's widow. ²³And they shall instruct my people in the difference between holy and profane, and they shall make known to them the difference between unclean and clean. ²⁴And in a dispute they shall stand to judge according to my judicial pronouncements, and they shall judge the matter, and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my set times, and they shall sanctify my Sabbaths. ²⁵No-one shall go to a dead person, so becoming unclean, except that they may defile themselves for their father, or for their mother, or for their son, or for their daughter, for their brother or for their sister who does not have a husband. ²⁶Then after his cleansing, they shall count out seven days for him, ²⁷then on the day when he goes into the sanctuary – into the inner court to serve in the sanctuary – he shall make his sin-offering, says the Lord, the Lord. ²⁸And this will be their inheritance: I am their inheritance. And you will not give them any territory in Israel: I am their territory. ²⁹And they shall eat the meal-offering, and the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering. And every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs. ³⁰And the first harvest of all firstfruits of everything, and every heave-offering, of everything from all your heave-offerings, will be for the priests. And you will give the first batch of your dough to the priest so as to cause a blessing to rest on your house. ³¹The priests shall not eat any carcase, or anything preyed on, of poultry or of cattle.