Study Desk

And you must bring them near before Yahweh, and the priests must throw salt on them, and they must offer them as a burnt offering to Yahweh.

Seven days they must purify the altar and they must cleanse it and so they will consecrate it.

And they will finish the days, and then on the eighth day and beyond that the priests will offer on the altar your burnt offerings and your fellowship offerings, and then I will be pleased with you," declares the Lord Yahweh.

But the Levites who removed themselves from me at the going astray of Israel, who went astray from me and went after their idols, as a result they will bear their guilt.

Then they will be in my sanctuary, those serving in my sanctuary, as sentries at the gates of the temple and as those serving the temple; they will slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they will stand before them to serve them,

because they used to serve them before their idols and they were for the house of Israel like a stumbling block of iniquity. Therefore I swore concerning them," declares the Lord Yahweh, "that they will bear their iniquity.

And they shall not approach me to serve as a priest for me and to come near to all of my holy objects, to the most holy objects, and they will bear their disgrace and the results of their detestable things they have done.

But the Levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok, who cared for the responsibility of my sanctuary when the Israelites went astray from me, they will approach me to serve me, and they will stand before me to offer to me fat and blood," declares the Lord Yahweh.

"They shall come to my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table to serve me, and they will observe my requirement.

And then when they come to the gates of the inner courtyards, they shall put on their inner linen garments and not wear wool garments when they serve in the gates of the inner courtyard and inside the temple.

Linen turbans shall be on their head and linen undergarments shall be on their waists; they shall not gird themselves with material causing perspiration.

When they go out to the outer courtyard to the people, they must take off their garment in which they were serving, and they must place them in the holy chambers, and they must put on other garments, so that they will not make the people holy with their garments.

And their head they shall not shave, or long hair they shall not let grow; short they shall clip their heads.

And no priest shall drink wine when they come into the inner courtyard.

And a widow or divorced woman they shall not take for themselves as wives, but only a virgin from the offspring of the house of Israel, or the widow who is a widow for a priest they may take.

And they will teach my people the difference between what is holy and what is unholy, and the difference between unclean and clean they must show them.

And at a legal dispute they themselves shall stand to judge; employing my judgments they shall judge it, and with respect to my laws and my statutes. All my festivals they shall keep and my Sabbaths they shall consecrate.

And near a dead person he shall not come to be defiled, but only for a father and for a mother and for a son and for a daughter, for a brother and for a sister who was not married may they defile themselves.

And, after his cleansing, they shall count for him seven days,

The grain offering and the sin offering and the guilt offering, they themselves may eat them, and also all the consecrated possessions in Israel will be theirs.