Numbers 18:10-26

¹⁰As most holy things they are to be your food: let every male have them for food; it is to be holy to you.

¹¹And this is yours: the lifted offering which they give and all the wave offerings of the children of Israel I have given to you and to your sons and to your daughters as your right for ever: everyone in your house who is clean may have them for food.

¹²All the best of the oil and the wine and the grain, the first-fruits of them which they give to the Lord, to you have I given them.

¹³The earliest produce from their land which they take to the Lord is to be yours; everyone in your house who is clean may have it for his food.

¹⁴Everything given by oath to the Lord in Israel is to be yours.

¹⁵The first birth of every living thing which is offered to the Lord, of man or beast, is to be yours; but for the first sons of man payment is to be made, and for the first young of unclean beasts.

¹⁶Payment is to be made for these when they are a month old, at the value fixed by you, a price of five shekels by the scale of the holy place, that is, twenty gerahs to the shekel.

¹⁷But no such payment may be made for the first birth of an ox or a sheep or a goat; these are holy: their blood is to be dropped on the altar, and their fat burned for an offering made by fire, a sweet smell to the Lord.

¹⁸Their flesh is to be yours; like the breast of the wave offering and the right leg, it is to be yours.

¹⁹All the lifted offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel give to the Lord, I have given to you and to your sons and to your daughters as a right for ever. This is an agreement made with salt before the Lord, to you and to your seed for ever.

²⁰And the Lord said to Aaron, You will have no heritage in their land, or any part among them; I am your part and your heritage among the children of Israel.

²¹And to the children of Levi I have given as their heritage all the tenths offered in Israel, as payment for the work they do, the work of the Tent of meeting.

²²In future the children of Israel are not to come near the Tent of meeting, so that death may not come to them because of sin.

²³But the Levites are to do the work of the Tent of meeting, and be responsible for errors in connection with it: this is a law for ever through all your generations; and among the children of Israel they will have no heritage.

²⁴For the tenths which the children of Israel give as a lifted offering to the Lord I have given to the Levites as their heritage. and so I have said to them, Among the children of Israel they will have no heritage.

²⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

²⁶Say to the Levites, When you take from the children of Israel the tenth which I have given to you from them as your heritage, a tenth part of that tenth is to be offered as an offering lifted up before the Lord.