Numbers 18–20

Provision for the Priesthood

18The Lord said to Aaron, “You, your sons, and your ancestral house ^lwill be responsible for sin against the sanctuary. You and your sons will be responsible for sin involving your priesthood. ²But also bring your relatives with you from the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, so they may join you and assist you and your sons in front of the tent of the testimony. ^m3They are to perform duties for you and for the whole tent. They must not come near the sanctuary equipment or the altar; otherwise, both they and you will die. ⁴They are to join you and guard the tent of meeting, doing all the work at the tent, but no unauthorized person may come near you.

⁵“You are to guard the sanctuary and the altar so that wrath may not fall on the Israelites again. ⁿ⁶Look, I have selected your fellow Levites from the Israelites as a gift for you, ^oassigned by the Lord to work at the tent of meeting. ⁷But you and your sons will carry out your priestly responsibilities ^pfor everything concerning the altar and for what is inside the veil, and you will do that work. I am giving you the work of the priesthood as a gift, ^qbut an unauthorized person who comes near the sanctuary will be put to death.” ^r

Support for the Priests and Levites

⁸Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, “Look, I have put you in charge of the contributions ^sbrought to Me. As for all the holy offerings ^tof the Israelites, I have given them to you and your sons as a portion and a permanent statute. ^u9A portion of the holiest offerings kept from the fire will be yours; every one of their offerings that they give Me, whether the grain offering, sin offering, or restitution offering will be most holy for you and your sons. ¹⁰You are to eat it as a most holy offering. ^vEvery male may eat it; it is to be holy to you.

¹¹“The contribution of their gifts also belongs to you. I have given all the Israelites’ presentation offerings ^wto you and to your sons and daughters as a permanent statute. ^xEvery ceremonially clean person in your house may eat it. ¹²I am giving you all the best of the fresh olive oil, new wine, and grain, ^ywhich the Israelites give to the Lord as their firstfruits. ^z13The firstfruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, belong to you. Every clean person in your house may eat them.

¹⁴“Everything in Israel that is permanently dedicated to the Lord ^abelongs to you. ¹⁵The firstborn of every living thing, man or animal, presented to the Lord belongs to you. But you must certainly redeem the firstborn of man, ^band redeem the firstborn of an unclean animal. ¹⁶You will pay the redemption price for a month-old male according to your assessment: five shekels of silver by the standard sanctuary shekel, which is 20 gerahs. ^c

¹⁷“However, you must not redeem the firstborn of an ox, a sheep, or a goat; they are holy. You are to sprinkle their blood on the altar and burn their fat as a fire offering for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹⁸But their meat belongs to you. It belongs to you like the breast of the presentation offering and the right thigh.

¹⁹“I give to you and to your sons and daughters all the holy contributions that the Israelites present to the Lord as a permanent statute. It is a permanent covenant of salt ^dbefore the Lord for you as well as your offspring.”

²⁰The Lord told Aaron, “You will not have an inheritance in their land; there will be no portion among them for you. I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites. ^e

²¹“Look, I have given the Levites every tenth ^fin Israel as an inheritance in return for the work they do, the work of the tent of meeting. ²²The Israelites must never again come near the tent of meeting, or they will incur guilt and die. ²³The Levites will do the work of the tent of meeting, and they will bear the consequences of their sin. The Levites will not receive an inheritance among the Israelites; ^gthis is a permanent statute throughout your generations. ²⁴For I have given them the tenth that the Israelites present to the Lord as a contribution for their inheritance. That is why I told them that they would not receive an inheritance among the Israelites.”

²⁵The Lord instructed Moses, ²⁶“Speak to the Levites and tell them: When you receive from the Israelites the tenth that I have given you as your inheritance, you must present part of it as an offering to the Lord—a tenth of the tenth. ²⁷Your offering will be credited to you as if it were your grain from the threshing floor or the full harvest from the winepress. ²⁸You are to present an offering to the Lord from every tenth you receive from the Israelites. Give some of it to Aaron the priest as an offering to the Lord. ²⁹You must present the entire offering due the Lord from all your gifts. The best part of the tenth ^his to be consecrated.

³⁰“Tell them further: Once you have presented the best part of the tenth, and it is credited to you Levites as the produce of the threshing floor or the winepress, ³¹then you and your household may eat it anywhere. It is your wage in return for your work at the tent of meeting. ³²You will not incur guilt because of it once you have presented the best part of it, but you must not defile the Israelites’ holy offerings, so that you will not die.”

Purification Ritual

19The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, ²“This is the legal statute that the Lord has commanded: Instruct the Israelites to bring you an unblemished red cow that has no defect and has never been yoked. ⁱ³Give it to Eleazar ^jthe priest, and he will have it brought outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. ⁴Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting. ⁵The cow must be burned in his sight. Its hide, flesh, and blood, are to be burned along with its dung. ⁶The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson yarn, ^kand throw them onto the fire where the cow is burning. ⁷Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; after that he may enter the camp, but he will remain ceremonially unclean until evening. ⁸The one who burned the cow must also wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he will remain unclean until evening.

⁹“A man who is clean is to gather up the cow’s ashes and deposit them outside the camp in a ceremonially clean place. The ashes must be kept by the Israelite community for preparing the water to remove impurity; it is a sin offering. ^l10Then the one who gathers up the cow’s ashes must wash his clothes, and he will remain unclean until evening. This is a permanent statute for the Israelites and for the foreigner who resides among them.

¹¹“The person who touches any human corpse will be unclean for seven days. ¹²He is to purify himself with the water ^mon the third day and the seventh day; then he will be clean. ⁿBut if he does not purify himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean. ¹³Anyone who touches a body of a person who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That person will be cut off from Israel. He remains unclean because the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, and his uncleanness is still on him.

¹⁴“This is the law when a person dies in a tent: everyone who enters the tent and everyone who is already in the tent will be unclean for seven days, ¹⁵and any open container without a lid tied on it is unclean. ¹⁶Anyone in the open field who touches a person who has been killed by the sword or has died, or who even touches a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean for seven days. ¹⁷For the purification of the unclean person, they are to take some of the ashes of the burnt sin offering, put them in a jar, and add fresh water to them. ¹⁸A person who is clean is to take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, all the furnishings, and the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle the one who touched a bone, a grave, a corpse, or a person who had been killed.

¹⁹“The one who is clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and the seventh day. After he purifies the unclean person on the seventh day, the one being purified must wash his clothes and bathe in water, and he will be clean by evening. ²⁰But a person who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person will be cut off from the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. ^oThe water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean. ²¹This is a permanent statute for them. The person who sprinkles the water for impurity is to wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water for impurity will be unclean until evening. ²²Anything the unclean person touches will become unclean, and anyone who touches it will be unclean until evening.”

Water from the Rock

20The entire Israelite community entered the Wilderness of Zin ^pin the first month, and they ^qsettled in Kadesh. ^rMiriam ^sdied and was buried there.

²There was no water for the community, so they assembled against Moses and Aaron. ³The people quarreled with Moses and said, ^t“If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord. ^u4Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness ^vfor us and our livestock to die here? ^w5Why have you led us up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It’s not a place of grain, figs, vines, and pomegranates, ^xand there is no water to drink!”

⁶Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting. They fell down with their faces to the ground, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. ⁷The Lord spoke to Moses, ⁸“Take the staff ^yand assemble the community. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock ^zwhile they watch, and it will yield its water. You will bring out water for them from the rock and provide drink for the community and their livestock.”

⁹So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence ^ajust as He had…