Numbers 8:5-22

The Cleansing of the Levites

⁵ And the Lord said to Moses, ⁶ Take the Levites out from among the children of Israel and make them clean. ⁷ And this is how you are to make them clean: let the holy water which takes away sin be put on them, and let the hair all over their bodies be cut off with a sharp blade, and let their clothing be washed and their bodies made clean. ⁸ Then let them take a young ox and its meal offering, crushed grain mixed with oil, and take another ox for a sin-offering. ⁹ And make the Levites come forward in front of the Tent of meeting, and let all the children of Israel come together: ¹⁰ And you are to take the Levites before the Lord: and the children of Israel are to put their hands on them: ¹¹ And Aaron is to give the Levites to the Lord as a wave offering from the children of Israel, so that they may do the Lord's work. ¹² And the Levites are to put their hands on the heads of the oxen, and one of the oxen is to be offered for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering to the Lord to take away the sin of the Levites. ¹³ Then the Levites are to be put before Aaron and his sons, to be offered as a wave offering to the Lord. ¹⁴ So you are to make the Levites separate from the children of Israel, and the Levites will be mine. ¹⁵ After that, the Levites will go in to do whatever has to be done in the Tent of meeting; you are to make them clean and give them as a wave offering. ¹⁶ For they have been given to me from among the children of Israel; in place of every mother's first son, the first to come to birth in Israel, I have taken them for myself. ¹⁷ For every mother's first son among the children of Israel is mine, the first male birth of man or beast: on the day when I sent death on all the first sons in the land of Egypt, I made them mine. ¹⁸ And in place of the first sons among the children of Israel, I have taken the Levites. ¹⁹ And I have given them to Aaron and to his sons, from among the children of Israel, to undertake for them all the work of the Tent of meeting, and to take away sin from the children of Israel so that no evil may come on them when they come near the holy place. ²⁰ All these things Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel did to the Levites; as the Lord gave orders to Moses about the Levites, so the children of Israel did. ²¹ And the Levites were made clean from sin, and their clothing was washed, and Aaron gave them for a wave offering before the Lord; and Aaron took away their sin and made them clean. ²² And then the Levites went in to do their work in the Tent of meeting before Aaron and his sons: all the orders which the Lord had given Moses about the Levites were put into effect.