Study Desk

'For seven days they shall make atonement for the altar and purify it; so the priests shall consecrate it [to receive offerings].

'When they have completed these days, on the eighth day and from then onward, the priests shall offer your burnt offerings on the altar, and your peace offerings; and I will accept you,' says the Lord GOD."

"In that you brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My sanctuary to pollute and profane it—My house—when you offered My bread, the fat, and the blood; and they made My covenant void —this in addition to all your other repulsive acts.

"But the Levites who went far away from Me when Israel went astray, who went astray from Me after their idols, they shall bear the punishment for their sin and guilt.

"Yet they shall minister in My sanctuary, having oversight [as guards] at the gates of the temple and ministering in the temple. They shall slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them.

"Because the priests ministered to them before their idols and became a stumbling block of sin to the house of Israel, therefore I have lifted up My hand and have sworn [an oath] against them," says the Lord GOD, "that they shall bear the punishment for their sin and guilt.

"And they shall not come near to Me to serve as priests to Me, nor come near to any of My holy things, to the things that are most holy; but they shall bear their shame and their disgrace and [the consequences of] their repulsive acts which they have committed.

"But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who performed the duty of My sanctuary when the children (descendants) of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood," declares the Lord GOD.

"They shall enter into My sanctuary; and they shall come near to My table to minister to Me and they shall perform [the priestly] duty to me.

"It shall be that when they enter the gates of the inner courtyard, they shall be clothed in linen garments; no wool shall be on them while they minister at the gates of the inner courtyard and within the temple (house).

"They shall have linen turbans on their heads and linen undergarments on their loins; they shall not dress themselves with anything which makes them sweat.

"When they go out into the outer court, into the outer courtyard to the people, they shall take off the garments in which they have been ministering and leave them in the holy chambers; then they shall put on other clothing so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their [ceremonial] garments.

"And they shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman; but they shall marry virgins of the descendants of the house of Israel, or a widow who was previously married to a priest.

"In a controversy they shall take their stand to act as judges; they shall judge it in accordance with My ordinances. They shall also keep My laws and My statutes in all My appointed feasts and sanctify My Sabbaths.

"They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering; and every devoted thing (offering) in Israel [dedicated by a solemn vow to God] shall be theirs.

"And another portion of land 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 cubits wide shall be for the Levites, the ministers of the temple (house), and they shall possess it as a place in which to live.

"When they go in, the prince shall go in among them; and when they go out, he shall go out.

"Thus they shall provide the lamb, the grain offering and the oil every morning as a continual burnt offering."

He said to me, "This is the place where the priests shall boil (cook) the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the grain offering, so that they do not bring them out into the outer courtyard to transmit holiness to the people."

Then he said to me, "These waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the Arabah (the Jordan Valley); then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the Dead Sea shall be healed and become fresh.