18:1 "The Levitical priests, that is, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings by fire to the LORD, and his rightful dues.
18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
18:3 And this shall be the priests' due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.
18:4 The first fruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.
18:5 For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand and minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for ever.
18:6 "And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives -- and he may come when he desires -- to the place which the LORD will choose,
18:7 then he may minister in the name of the LORD his God, like all his fellow-Levites who stand to minister there before the LORD.
18:8 They shall have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.
18:9 "When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
18:10 There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer,
18:11 or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
18:12 For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.
18:13 You shall be blameless before the LORD your God.
18:14 For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do.
18:15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren -- him you shall heed --
18:16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, `Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.'
18:17 And the LORD said to me, `They have rightly said all that they have spoken.
18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
18:19 And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
18:20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.'
18:21 And if you say in your heart, `How may we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?' --
18:22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.
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