Numbers 8

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¹And the Lord spake to Moses, and said,

²Speak thou to Aaron, and thou shalt say to him, When thou hast set the seven lanterns, the candlestick be raised in the south part; therefore command thou this, that the lanterns behold even against the north to the board of the loaves of setting forth, those lanterns shall shine against that part that the candlestick beholdeth to.

³And Aaron did so, and he putted the lanterns upon the candlestick, as the Lord commanded to Moses.

⁴Soothly this was the making of the candlestick; it was of gold beaten out with hammers, as well the middle stalk, as all the things that came forth on ever either side of the rods; by the sample which the Lord showed to Moses, so he wrought the candlestick.

⁵And the Lord spake to Moses, and said,

⁶Take thou the Levites from the midst of the sons of Israel; and thou shalt cleanse them by this custom.

⁷Be they sprinkled with water of cleansing, or of purification, and shave they all the hairs of their flesh. And when they have washed their clothes and be cleansed,

⁸take they an ox of the droves, and the flowing or liquor sacrifice thereof, tried flour sprinkled altogether with oil; forsooth thou shalt take another ox of the drove for sin;

⁹and thou shalt present the Levites before the tabernacle of the bond of peace, when all the multitude of the sons of Israel is called together.

¹⁰And when the Levites be presented before the Lord, the sons of Israel shall set or put their hands upon them;

¹¹and Aaron shall offer the Levites in the sight of the Lord, a gift of the sons of Israel, that they serve in the service of him.

¹²Also the Levites shall set their hands upon the heads of the oxen, of which oxen thou shalt make, or ordain, one for sin, and the tother into burnt sacrifice of the Lord, that thou pray for them.

¹³And thou shalt ordain the Levites in the sight of Aaron, and of his sons, and thou shalt make sacred them offered to the Lord;

¹⁴and thou shalt separate them from the midst of the sons of Israel, that they be mine.

¹⁵And afterward enter they into the tabernacle of the bond of peace, that they serve me; and so thou shalt cleanse and hallow them, into an offering of the Lord,

¹⁶for by free gift they be given to me of the sons of Israel. I have taken them for the first begotten things that open each womb in Israel;

¹⁷for all the first begotten things of the sons of Israel be mine, as well of men as of beasts, from the day in which I smote each first engendered thing in the land of Egypt, I have hallowed them to me.

¹⁸And I took the Levites for all the first begotten of the sons of Israel;

¹⁹and I gave them by free gift to Aaron and to his sons, from the midst of the people, that they serve me for Israel, in the tabernacle of the bond of peace, and that they pray for them, lest vengeance be in the people, if they be hardy to nigh to the saintuary.

²⁰And Moses and Aaron, and all the multitude of the sons of Israel, did upon the Levites those things that the Lord commanded to Moses.

²¹And the Levites were cleansed, and they washed their clothes; and Aaron raised, or presented, them in the sight of the Lord, and he prayed for them, that they shall be cleansed,

²²and should enter to their offices into the tabernacle of the bond of peace, before Aaron and his sons; as the Lord commanded to Moses of the Levites, so it was done.

²³And the Lord spake to Moses, and said,

²⁴This is the law of the Levites; from five and twenty years and above they shall enter, for to minister in the tabernacle of the bond of peace;

²⁵and when they have filled the fiftieth year of age, they shall cease to serve.

²⁶And they shall be the ministers of their brethren in the tabernacle of the bond of peace, that they keep those things that be betaken to them; soothly they shall not do those works, as they did before; thus thou shalt dispose the Levites in their keepings.