Regulations for the Eating of Priestly Stipends

22:1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 22:2 “Tell Aaron and his sons that they must deal respectfully with the holy offerings1 of the Israelites, which they consecrate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name.2 I am the Lord. 22:3 Say to them, ‘Throughout your generations,3 if any man from all your descendants approaches the holy offerings which the Israelites consecrate4 to the Lord while he is impure,5 that person must be cut off from before me.6 I am the Lord. 22:4 No man7 from the descendants of Aaron who is diseased or has a discharge8 may eat the holy offerings until he becomes clean. The one9 who touches anything made unclean by contact with a dead person,10 or a man who has a seminal emission,11 22:5 or a man who touches a swarming thing by which he becomes unclean,12 or touches a person13 by which he becomes unclean, whatever that person’s impurity14—22:6 the person who touches any of these15 will be unclean until evening and must not eat from the holy offerings unless he has bathed his body in water. 22:7 When the sun goes down he will be clean, and afterward he may eat from the holy offerings, because they are his food. 22:8 He must not eat an animal that has died of natural causes16 or an animal torn by beasts and thus become unclean by it. I am the Lord. 22:9 They must keep my charge so that they do not incur sin on account of it17 and therefore die18 because they profane it. I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

22:10 “ ‘No lay person19 may eat anything holy. Neither a priest’s lodger20 nor a hired laborer may eat anything holy, 22:11 but if a priest buys a person with his own money,21 that person22 may eat the holy offerings,23 and those born in the priest’s24 own house may eat his food.25 22:12 If a priest’s daughter marries a lay person,26 she may not eat the holy contribution offerings,27 22:13 but if a priest’s daughter is a widow or divorced, and she has no children so that she returns to live in28 her father’s house as in her youth,29 she may eat from her father’s food, but no lay person may eat it.

22:14 “ ‘If a man eats a holy offering by mistake,30 he must add one fifth to it and give the holy offering to the priest.31 22:15 They32 must not profane the holy offerings which the Israelites contribute33 to the Lord,34 22:16 and so cause them to incur a penalty for guilt35 when they eat their holy offerings,36 for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’ ”