Emor

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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