Numbers 18:18-31

¹⁸Their meat will be yours. Like the raised breast and the right thigh, their meat will be yours.

¹⁹All the holy offerings that the people of Israel present to Yahweh, I have given to you, and to your sons and to your daughters with you, as a continual share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt, a binding covenant forever, before Yahweh for both you and your descendants with you.”

²⁰Yahweh said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in the people's land, nor will you have any share of property among the people. I am your share and inheritance among the people of Israel.

²¹To the descendants of Levi, look, I have given all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the service that they provide in working at the tent of meeting.

²²From now on the people of Israel must not come near the tent of meeting, or they will be responsible for this sin and die.

²³The Levites must do the work connected to the tent of meeting. They will be responsible for any sin regarding it. This will be a permanent law throughout your people's generations. Among the people of Israel they must have no inheritance.

²⁴For the tithes of the people of Israel, which they offer as a contribution to me—it is these that I have given to the Levites as their inheritance. That is why I said to them, 'They must have no inheritance among the people of Israel.'”

²⁵Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,

²⁶“You must speak to the Levites and say to them, 'When you receive from the people of Israel the tenth that I have given to you from them for your inheritance, you will present a contribution from it to Yahweh, a tenth of the tithe.

²⁷Your contribution must be considered by you as if it were a tenth of the grain from the threshing floor or of the production from the winepress.

²⁸So you also must make a contribution to Yahweh from all the tithes that you receive from the people of Israel. From them you must give his contribution to Aaron the priest.

²⁹Out of all the gifts you receive, you must make every contribution to Yahweh. You must do this from all the best and the holiest things that have been given to you.'

³⁰Therefore you must say to them, 'When you present the best of it, then it must be credited to the Levites as the product from the threshing floor and the winepress.

³¹You may eat the rest of your gifts in any place, you and your families, because it is your pay in return for your work in the tent of meeting.