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Privileges of Priests and Levites18 The levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no allotment or inheritance within Israel. They may eat the sacrifices that are the L ord’s portion 2but they shall have no inheritance among the other members of the community; the L ord is their inheritance, as he promised them. 3 This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the two jowls, and the stomach. 4The first fruits of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5For the L ord your God has chosen Levi out of all your tribes, to stand and minister in the name of the L ord, him and his sons for all time. 6 If a Levite leaves any of your towns, from wherever he has been residing in Israel, and comes to the place that the L ord will choose (and he may come whenever he wishes), 7then he may minister in the name of the L ord his God, like all his fellow-Levites who stand to minister there before the L ord. 8They shall have equal portions to eat, even though they have income from the sale of family possessions. Child-Sacrifice, Divination, and Magic Prohibited9 When you come into the land that the L ord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, 11or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. 12For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the L ord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the L ord your God is driving them out before you. 13You must remain completely loyal to the L ord your God. 14Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the L ord your God does not permit you to do so. A New Prophet Like Moses15 The L ord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16This is what you requested of the L ord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the L ord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” 17Then the L ord replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. 18I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. 20But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.” 21You may say to yourself, “How can we recognize a word that the L ord has not spoken?” 22If a prophet speaks in the name of the L ord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the L ord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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13. Thou shalt be perfect. He refers to the mutual obligation of that holy covenant whereby as on the one side He had pledged Himself to the Jews, so on the other He had made them His debtors, not to prostitute themselves to idols, or to hanker after strange religions, whereby men’s minds are led astray. This perfectness, then, is opposed to all those mixtures or corruptions which withdraw us from the sincere worship of the one true God; because the simplicity which retains us in obedience to heavenly teaching, is that spiritual chastity which God requires in His Church. The context of the passage proves this with sufficient clearness, viz., that God would restrain the Jews from all licentiousness, so that being devoted to His service, they should not look this way or that way, nor be carried away by vanity and instability, but constantly abide in the pure worship which He had prescribed to them. For this reason Paul declares that he is jealous for Christ; and because he had “espoused” the Corinthians to Christ, he feared “lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtlety,” so being ensnared by the wiles of impostors, they should fall “from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:2.) |