Deuteronomy
18
- The priests, who are Levites -- indeed the
whole tribe of Levi -- are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel.
They shall live on the offerings made to the LORD by fire, for that is their
inheritance.
- They shall have no inheritance among their
brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
- This is the share due the priests from the
people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the jowls and the inner
parts.
- You are to give them the firstfruits of
your grain, new wine and oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your
sheep,
- for the LORD your God has chosen them and
their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the LORD'S
name always.
- If a Levite moves from one of your towns
anywhere in Israel where he is living, and comes in all earnestness to the
place the LORD will choose,
- he may minister in the name of the LORD
his God like all his fellow Levites who serve there in the presence of the
LORD.
- He is to share equally in their benefits,
even though he has received money from the sale of family possessions.
- When you enter the land the LORD your God
is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations
there.
- Let no one be found among you who sacrifices
his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets
omens, engages in witchcraft,
- or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist
or who consults the dead.
- Anyone who does these things is detestable
to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will
drive out those nations before you.
- You must be blameless before the LORD your
God.
- The nations you will dispossess listen to
those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God
has not permitted you to do so.
- The LORD your God will raise up for you
a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.
- For this is what you asked of the LORD your
God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, "Let us not hear
the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will
die."
- The LORD said to me: "What they say
is good.
- I will raise up for them a prophet like
you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will
tell them everything I command him.
- If anyone does not listen to my words that
the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.
- But a prophet who presumes to speak in my
name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in
the name of other gods, must be put to death."
- You may say to yourselves, "How can
we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?"
- If what a prophet proclaims in the name
of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has
not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.
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