Good News Bible

Leviticus 21:10-23 Good News Bible (GNB)

10. “The High Priest has had the anointing oil poured on his head and has been consecrated to wear the priestly garments, so he must not leave his hair uncombed or tear his clothes to show that he is in mourning.

11-12. He has been dedicated to me and is not to make himself ritually unclean nor is he to defile my sacred Tent by leaving it and entering a house where there is a dead person, even if it is his own father or mother.

13. He shall marry a virgin,

14. not a widow or a divorced woman or a woman who has been a prostitute. He shall marry only a virgin from his own clan.

15. Otherwise, his children, who ought to be holy, will be ritually unclean. I am the Lord and I have set him apart as the High Priest.”

16. The Lord commanded Moses

17. to say to Aaron, “None of your descendants who has any physical defect may present the food offering to me. This applies for all time to come.

18. No man with any physical defect may make the offering: no one who is blind, lame, disfigured, or deformed;

19. no one with a crippled hand or foot;

20. no one who is a hunchback or a dwarf; no one with any eye or skin disease; and no eunuch.

21. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any physical defect may present the food offering to me.

22. Such a man may eat the food offered to me, both the holy food offering and the very holy food offering,

23. but because he has a physical defect, he shall not come near the sacred curtain or approach the altar. He must not profane these holy things, because I am the Lord and I make them holy.”