Numbers 18:18-32

International Standard Version

¹⁸ Their meat is to belong to you, just as the breast wave offering and the right thigh is yours. ¹⁹ I’m giving you, your sons, and your daughters as a prescribed portion forever all the raised offerings of the consecrated things that the Israelis offer to the Lord. It’s a salt covenant forever before the Lord with you and your descendants with you.”

Land Prohibited to Descendants of Levi

²⁰ Then the Lord instructed Aaron, “You are not to have any inheritance in the land, nor are you to have any portion among the people.^[a] I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelis. ²¹ As to the descendants of Levi, certainly I’ve given all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for their services that they perform at the Tent of Meeting. ²² Therefore, the Israelis need no longer come to the Tent of Meeting, so they won’t suffer the consequences of their sin and die. ²³ The descendants of Levi are to perform the service of the Tent of Meeting and they are to bear their iniquity. This is to be a statute forever, throughout your generations, that they are not to receive an inheritance among the Israelis, ²⁴ because I’ve given to the descendants of Levi the tithes that the Israelis bring to the Lord as raised offering. Therefore I told them that, unlike the Israelis, they won’t receive an inheritance.”

Offerings Given to the Descendants of Levi

²⁵ Then the Lord instructed Moses, ²⁶ “Tell the descendants of Levi that when they receive tithes from the Israelis (the tithes that I’ve given you from them as an inheritance), you are to offer a tenth of it^[b] as a raised offering for the Lord. ²⁷ Your raised offerings are to be accounted for you as though it were grain from threshing floors and full produce from wine vats. ²⁸ You are to offer a raised offering to the Lord from all your tithes that you receive from the Israelis. Give Aaron the priest the raised offering of the Lord ²⁹ out of all the most consecrated offerings that you receive, that is, all the raised offerings of the Lord, with all its best and the most holy parts of it. ³⁰ Tell them that when they bring the best from it, as far as the descendants of Levi are concerned, it is to be considered like produce from the threshing floors and wine vats. ³¹ You and your household may eat it anywhere, because it’s a reward to you in return for your services at the Tent of Meeting. ³² You won’t sin by offering the best of it, and you are not to profane the sacred things of the Israelis, so that you won’t die.”