Leviticus 21
21
Instructions for Priests
1The Lord gave Moses these instructions for Aaron's sons, the priests:
Touching a dead body will make you unclean. So don't go near a dead relative, 2except your mother, father, son, daughter, brother, 3or an unmarried sister, who has no husband to take care of her. 4Don't make yourself unclean by attending the funeral of someone related to you by marriage.#21.4 marriage: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text of verse 4. 5#Lv 19.27,28; Dt 14.1. Don't shave any part of your head or trim your beard or cut yourself to show that you are mourning. 6I am the Lord your God, and I have chosen you alone to offer sacrifices of food to me on the altar. That's why you must keep yourselves holy. 7Don't marry a divorced woman or a woman who has served as a temple prostitute. You are holy, 8because I am holy. And so, you must be treated with proper respect, since you offer food sacrifices to me, the God of holiness.
9If any of you priests has a daughter who disgraces you by serving as a temple prostitute, she must be burned to death.
10If you are the high priest, you must not mess up your hair or tear your clothes in order to mourn for the dead. 11Don't make yourself unclean by going near a dead body, not even that of your own father or mother. 12If you leave the sacred place to attend a funeral, both you and the sacred place become unclean, because you are the high priest.
13If you are the high priest, you must marry only a virgin 14from your own tribe. Don't marry a divorced woman or any other woman who has already had sex, including a temple prostitute. 15In this way, your descendants will be qualified to serve me. Remember—I am the Lord, and I have chosen you.
16The Lord told Moses 17-18to say to Aaron:
No descendant of yours can ever serve as my priest if he is blind or lame, if his face is disfigured, if one leg is shorter than the other, 19if either a foot or a hand is paralyzed, 20if he is a hunchback or a dwarf, if an eye or his skin is diseased, or if his testicles have been damaged. 21These men may not serve as my priests and burn sacrifices to me. 22They may eat the food offerings presented to me, 23but they may not enter the sacred place or serve me at the altar. Remember—I am the Lord, the one who makes a priest holy.
24Moses told all of this to Aaron, his sons, and the people of Israel.
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Leviticus 21: CEV
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Leviticus 21
21
Holy Priests
1-4 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron. Tell them, A priest must not ritually contaminate himself by touching the dead, except for close relatives: mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband; for these he may make himself ritually unclean, but he must not contaminate himself with the dead who are only related to him by marriage and thus profane himself.
5-6“Priests must not shave their heads or trim their beards or gash their bodies. They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because their job is to present the gifts of God, the food of their God, they are to be holy.
7-8“Because a priest is holy to his God he must not marry a woman who has been a harlot or a cult prostitute or a divorced woman. Make sure he is holy because he serves the food of your God. Treat him as holy because I, God, who make you holy, am holy.
9“If a priest’s daughter defiles herself in prostitution, she disgraces her father. She must be burned at the stake.
10-12“The high priest, the one among his brothers who has received the anointing oil poured on his head and been ordained to wear the priestly vestments, must not let his hair go wild and tangled nor wear ragged and torn clothes. He must not enter a room where there is a dead body. He must not ritually contaminate himself, even for his father or mother; and he must neither abandon nor desecrate the Sanctuary of his God because of the dedication of the anointing oil which is upon him. I am God.
13-15“He is to marry a young virgin, not a widow, not a divorcee, not a cult prostitute—he is only to marry a virgin from his own people. He must not defile his descendants among his people because I am God who makes him holy.”
16-23 God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron, None of your descendants, in any generation to come, who has a defect of any kind may present as an offering the food of his God. That means anyone who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed, crippled in foot or hand, hunchbacked or dwarfed, who has anything wrong with his eyes, who has running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to offer gifts to God; he has a defect and so must not offer the food of his God. He may eat the food of his God, both the most holy and the holy, but because of his defect he must not go near the curtain or approach the Altar. It would desecrate my Sanctuary. I am God who makes them holy.”
24Moses delivered this message to Aaron, his sons, and to all the People of Israel.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.