The Anselm Project

Chapter 21

¹ And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, 'For a soul, he shall not become unclean among his people.'" ² except for his close relative in the flesh, to his mother and to his father and to his son and to his daughter and to his brother. ³ And for his sister, the virgin who is close to him, who has not been with a man, he shall become ritually impure for her. ⁴ He shall not defile himself, a lord of his people, to profane it. ⁵ They shall not make a baldness on their head, and they shall not shave the edge of their beard, and they shall not make an incision on their flesh. ⁶ They shall be holy to their God, and they shall not profane the name of their God, for they are presenting the fire offerings of the LORD, the bread of their God; and they shall be holy. ⁷ They shall not take a prostitute or a profaned woman, and they shall not take a woman divorced from her husband, for he is holy to his God. ⁸ And you shall consecrate him, for he offers the bread of your God; he shall be holy to you, for I am holy, the LORD, who consecrates you. ⁹ If the daughter of a priest profanes her father by prostituting herself, she shall be burned with fire. ¹⁰ And the high priest among his brothers, upon whose head the anointing oil is poured and who is consecrated to wear the garments—he shall not let his head loose, and he shall not tear his garments. ¹¹ He shall not go near the body of any dead person; he shall not become unclean for his father or his mother. ¹² He shall not go out from the sanctuary, and he shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, for the diadem of the oil of anointing of his God is upon him; I am the LORD. ¹³ And he shall take a woman in her virginity. ¹⁴ Widow and divorced woman and profaned woman, prostitute—these he shall not take. Except a virgin from his people he shall take a wife. ¹⁵ And he shall not profane his seed among his people, for I, the LORD, am the one who sanctifies him. ¹⁶ And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying. ¹⁷ Speak to Aaron, saying: A man from your seed in their generations who has a defect shall not present to bring near bread of his God. ¹⁸ For any man who has a defect shall not come near: a blind man, or a lame man, or a man with a blemish, or a hunchbacked man. ¹⁹ or a man who has a broken foot or a broken hand ²⁰ or one who is hunchbacked or dwarfed or has a defect in his eye or a scab or a boil or crushed testicle. ²¹ No man who has a defect from the seed of Aaron the priest shall come near to present the fire offering of the LORD. He has a defect; he shall not come near to present the bread of his God. ²² the bread of his God, the most holy things, and from the holy things he shall eat. ²³ Only to the veil he shall not come, and to the altar he shall not approach, for he has a defect, and he shall not profane my sanctuary, for I, the LORD, am their sanctification. ²⁴ And Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel.

Chapter 22

¹ The LORD spoke to Moses, saying. ² Tell Aaron and his sons to keep away from the holy things of the sons of Israel that they consecrate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name—I am the LORD. ³ Say to them: To your generations, every man who approaches from all your seed to the holy things which the sons of Israel consecrate to the LORD, while his impurity is on him—that soul shall be cut off from before Me. I am the LORD. ⁴ Any man from the seed of Aaron who is leprous or has a discharge shall not eat of the holy things until he is purified; and anyone touched by any impure soul or a man from whom goes out a lying of seed. ⁵ or a man who touches any swarming thing by which he becomes ritually impure or a human by which he becomes ritually impure, according to all his ritual impurity. ⁶ The vital life force that touches it becomes ritually impure until the evening—and he shall not eat from the divinely sanctified things unless he washes his physical flesh in water. ⁷ When the sun sets and he becomes clean, then afterward he may eat from the holy things, for it is his bread. ⁸ He shall not eat carcass or torn animal, to defile himself with it—I am the LORD. ⁹ And they shall keep my charge, and they shall not bear sin on it and die in it, because he profanes it; I am the LORD who sanctifies them. ¹⁰ No stranger shall eat holy things—a resident alien of a priest or a hired worker shall not eat holy things. ¹¹ And a priest, if he acquires a soul as an acquisition of his silver, he may eat it; and one born in his house, they may eat his bread. ¹² And if a daughter of a priest becomes a stranger to a man, she shall not eat from the heave offering of the holy things. ¹³ And if the daughter of a priest is a widow or divorced and has no seed, and she returns to her father's house as in her youth, she shall eat from her father's bread, and no stranger shall eat it. ¹⁴ If a man eats holy things unintentionally, then he shall add one fifth of its value to it and give the holy thing to the priest. ¹⁵ And they shall not profane the holy things of the sons of Israel, which they raise to the LORD. ¹⁶ And they shall cause them to bear the iniquity of guilt by eating their holy things, for I, the LORD, am the one who sanctifies them.

Leviticus

Holiness of the Priests