Exodus 28:1

⁷You and your sons with you shall keep your priesthood for everything of the altar, and for that within the veil. You shall serve. I give you the service of the priesthood as a gift. The stranger who comes near shall be put to death.”

¹For every high priest, being taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. ²The high priest can deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, because he himself is also surrounded with weakness. ³Because of this, he must offer sacrifices for sins for the people, as well as for himself. ⁴Nobody takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just like Aaron was. ⁵So also Christ didn’t glorify himself to be made a high priest, but it was he who said to him, “You are my Son. Today I have become your father.”

²“Speak to the children of Israel, and take rods from them, one for each fathers’ house, of all their princes according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods. Write each man’s name on his rod. ³You shall write Aaron’s name on Levi’s rod. There shall be one rod for each head of their fathers’ houses. ⁴You shall lay them up in the Tent of Meeting before the covenant, where I meet with you. ⁵It shall happen that the rod of the man whom I shall choose shall bud. I will make the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against you, cease from me.”

⁶Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and all their princes gave him rods, for each prince one, according to their fathers’ houses, a total of twelve rods. Aaron’s rod was among their rods. ⁷Moses laid up the rods before the LORD in the Tent of the Testimony.

⁸On the next day, Moses went into the Tent of the Testimony; and behold, Aaron’s rod for the house of Levi had sprouted, budded, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds. ⁹Moses brought out all the rods from before the LORD to all the children of Israel. They looked, and each man took his rod.

⁹Is it a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do the service of the LORD’s tabernacle, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them; ¹⁰and that he has brought you near, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? Do you seek the priesthood also? ¹¹Therefore you and all your company have gathered together against the LORD! What is Aaron that you complain against him?”

⁶¹Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the LORD.

¹⁸They resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, “It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. It will not be for your honor from the LORD God.”

¹⁹Then Uzziah was angry. He had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and while he was angry with the priests, the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the LORD’s house, beside the altar of incense. ²⁰Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead; and they thrust him out quickly from there. Indeed, he himself also hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him. ²¹Uzziah the king was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the LORD’s house. Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.

⁶(The children of Israel traveled from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his place.

¹⁰Johanan became the father of Azariah, who executed the priest’s office in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem.

⁴⁴I will sanctify the Tent of Meeting and the altar. I will also sanctify Aaron and his sons to minister to me in the priest’s office.

⁴His division, and those who were counted of them, were seventy-four thousand six hundred.