1. The Lord said to Aaron: You and your sons as well as your ancestral house with you shall be responsible for any sin with respect to the sanctuary; but only you and your sons with you shall be responsible for any sin with respect to your priesthood.
2. You shall also present with you your kinsmen of the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, that they may be joined to you and assist you, while you and your sons with you are in front of the tent of the covenant.
3. They shall discharge your obligations and those with respect to the whole tent; however, they shall not come near the utensils of the sanctuary or the altar, or else both they and you will die.
4. They will be joined to you to perform the duties associated with the tent of meeting, all the labor pertaining to the tent. But no unauthorized person shall come near you.
5. You shall perform the duties of the sanctuary and of the altar, that wrath may not fall again upon the Israelites.
6. I hereby take your kinsmen, the Levites, from among the Israelites; they are a gift to you, dedicated to the Lord for the labor they perform for the tent of meeting.
7. But you and your sons with you must take care to exercise your priesthood in whatever concerns the altar and the area within the veil. I give you your priesthood as a gift. Any unauthorized person who comes near shall be put to death.
8. The Lord said to Aaron: I hereby give to you charge of the contributions made to me, including the various holy offerings of the Israelites; I assign them to you and to your sons as a perquisite, a perpetual due.
9. This is what you shall have from the oblations that are most holy: every offering of theirs—namely, all their grain offerings, purification offerings, and reparation offerings which they must return to me—shall be most holy for you and for your sons.
10. You shall eat them in a most holy place; every male may partake of them. As holy, they belong to you.
11. This also you shall have: the contributions that are their gifts, including the elevated offering of the Israelites; I assign them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual due. All in your household who are clean may eat them.
12. I also assign to you all the best of the new oil and of the new wine and grain that they give to the Lord as their first produce that has been processed.
13. The first-ripened fruits of whatever is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours; all of your household who are clean may eat them.
14. Whatever is under the ban in Israel shall be yours.
15. Every living thing that opens the womb, human being and beast alike, such as are to be offered to the Lord, shall be yours; but you must redeem the firstborn of human beings, as well as redeem the firstborn of unclean animals.