Leviticus 10

Chapter 10

The Sin of Nadab and Abihu

¹Now ^aNadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective ^bfirepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

^2aAnd fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

³Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying,

‘By those who ^acome near Me I ^1bwill be treated as holy,

And before all the people I will ^cbe honored.’ ”

So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.

⁴Moses called also to ^aMishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel, and said to them, “Come forward, carry your ¹relatives away from the front of the sanctuary to the outside of the camp.”

⁵So they came forward and carried them still in their ^atunics to the outside of the camp, as Moses had said.

⁶Then Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “^aDo not ¹uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, so that you will not die and that He will not ^bbecome wrathful against all the congregation. But your ²kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, shall bewail the burning which the Lord has ³brought about.

⁷“You shall not even go out from the doorway of the tent of meeting, or you will die; for ^athe Lord’s anointing oil is upon you.” So they did according to the word of Moses.

⁸The Lord then spoke to Aaron, saying,

⁹“^aDo not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you will not die—it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations—

¹⁰and ^aso as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean,

¹¹and ^aso as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.”

¹²Then Moses spoke to Aaron, and to his surviving sons, ^aEleazar and Ithamar, “^bTake the grain offering that is left over from the Lord’s offerings by fire and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy.

¹³“You shall eat it, moreover, in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons’ due out of the Lord’s offerings by fire; for thus I have been commanded.

¹⁴“^aThe breast of the wave offering, however, and the thigh of the offering you may eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you; for they have been given as your due and your sons’ due out of the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the sons of Israel.

¹⁵“^aThe thigh offered by lifting up and the breast offered by waving they shall bring along with the offerings by fire of the portions of fat, to present as a wave offering before the Lord; so it shall be a thing perpetually due you and your sons with you, just as the Lord has commanded.”

¹⁶But Moses searched carefully for the ^agoat of the sin offering, and behold, it had been burned up! So he was angry with Aaron’s surviving sons Eleazar and Ithamar, saying,

¹⁷“Why ^adid you not eat the sin offering at the holy place? For it is most holy, and ¹He gave it to you to bear away ^bthe guilt of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord.

¹⁸“Behold, ^asince its blood had not been brought inside, into the sanctuary, you should certainly have ^beaten it in the sanctuary, just as I commanded.”

¹⁹But Aaron spoke to Moses, “Behold, this very day they ^apresented their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord. When things like these happened to me, if I had eaten a sin offering today, would it have been good in the sight of the Lord?”

²⁰When Moses heard that, it seemed good in his sight.