Deuteronomy 18
Provision for Priests and Levites
1“The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, ashall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They bshall eat the Lord’s food offerings ▼ as their ▼▼Hebrew his
inheritance. 2They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them. 3And this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: ethey shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. 4 fThe firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. 5For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes gto stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time. 6“And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, hwhere he lives—and he may come when he desires ▼▼Or lives—if he comes enthusiastically
— jto the place that the Lord will choose, 7and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, klike all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord, 8then he may have equal lportions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony. ▼▼The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
Abominable Practices
9“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, nyou shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10There shall not be found among you anyone owho burns his son or his daughter as an offering, ▼▼Hebrew makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire
anyone who qpractices divination or rtells fortunes or interprets omens, or sa sorcerer 11or a charmer or ta medium or a necromancer or uone who inquires of the dead, 12 vfor whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And wbecause of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. A New Prophet like Moses
15 x“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb yon the day of the assembly, when you said, z‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17And the Lord said to me, aa‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 abI will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. acAnd I will put my words in his mouth, and adhe shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 aeAnd whoever will afnot listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 agBut the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or ▼▼Or and
who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 aiwhen a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; ajthe prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
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