NET Bible

Provision for Priests and Levites

^18:1 The Levitical priests —indeed, the entire tribe of Levi—will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. ^18:2 They will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them. ^18:3 This shall be the priests’ fair allotment from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep—they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach. ^18:4 You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks. ^18:5 For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in his name permanently. ^18:6 Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, to the place the Lord chooses ^18:7 and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord. ^18:8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance.

Prohibited Occult Practices

^18:9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. ^18:10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, ^18:11 one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer. ^18:12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you. ^18:13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. ^18:14 Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

^18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him. ^18:16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this great fire anymore lest we die.” ^18:17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. ^18:18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. ^18:19 I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.

^18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. ^18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ — ^18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”