Emor

Emor Posted On Jan 1, 1980 | Haftarah Reading
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This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh

Ezekiel 44:15-31

15 But the levitical priests descended from Zadok, who maintained the service of My Sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from Me — they shall approach Me to minister to Me; they shall stand before Me to offer Me fat and blood — declares the Lord God. 16 They alone may enter My Sanctuary and they alone shall approach My table to minister to Me; and they shall keep My charge. 17 And when they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen vestments: they shall have nothing woolen upon them when they minister inside the gates of the inner court. 18 They shall have linen turbans on their heads and linen breeches on their loins; they shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat. 19 When they go out to the outer court — the outer court where the people are — they shall remove the vestments in which they minister and shall deposit them in the sacred chambers; they shall put on other garments, lest they make the people consecrated by [contact with] their vestments. 20 They shall neither shave their heads nor let their hair go untrimmed; they shall keep their hair trimmed. 21 No priest shall drink wine when he enters into the inner court. 22 They shall not marry widows or divorced women; they may marry only virgins of the stock of the House of Israel, or widows who are widows of priests.

23 They shall declare to My people what is sacred and what is profane, and inform them what is clean and what is unclean. 24 In lawsuits, too, it is they who shall act as judges; they shall decide them in accordance with My rules. They shall preserve My teachings and My laws regarding all My fixed occasions; and they shall maintain the sanctity of My sabbaths. 25 [A priest] shall not defile himself by entering [a house] where there is a dead person. He shall defile himself only for father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister. 26 After he has become clean, seven days shall be counted off for him; 27 and on the day that he reenters the inner court of the Sanctuary to minister in the Sanctuary, he shall present his sin offering — declares the Lord God.

28 This shall be their portion, for I am their portion; and no holding shall be given them in Israel, for I am their holding. 29 The meal offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings shall be consumed by them. Everything proscribed in Israel shall be theirs. 30 All the choice first fruits of every kind, and all the gifts of every kind — of all your contributions — shall go to the priests. You shall further give the first of the yield of your baking to the priest, that a blessing may rest upon your home.

31 Priests shall not eat anything, whether bird or animal, that died or was torn by beasts.


Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
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