Numbers 18:2

³⁴She conceived again, and bore a son. She said, “Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi.

¹⁵“‘“But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who performed the duty of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me. They shall stand before me to offer to me the fat and the blood,” says the Lord GOD.

⁶“Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. ⁷They shall keep his requirements, and the requirements of the whole congregation before the Tent of Meeting, to do the service of the tabernacle. ⁸They shall keep all the furnishings of the Tent of Meeting, and the obligations of the children of Israel, to do the service of the tabernacle. ⁹You shall give the Levites to Aaron and to his sons. They are wholly given to him on the behalf of the children of Israel. ¹⁰You shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall keep their priesthood, but the stranger who comes near shall be put to death.”

¹¹The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ¹²“Behold, ^[+] I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn who open the womb among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be mine, ¹³for all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I made holy to me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and animal. They shall be mine. I am the LORD.”

¹⁹I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the Tent of Meeting, and to make atonement for the children of Israel, so that there will be no plague among the children of Israel when the children of Israel come near to the sanctuary.”

⁴⁰to be a memorial to the children of Israel, to the end that no stranger who isn’t of the offspring of Aaron, would come near to burn incense before the LORD, that he not be as Korah and as his company; as the LORD spoke to him by Moses.

¹⁶They stood in their place after their order, according to the law of Moses the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood which they received of the hand of the Levites.

⁴They shall be joined to you and keep the responsibility of the Tent of Meeting, for all the service of the Tent. A stranger shall not come near to you.

⁷Moses laid up the rods before the LORD in the Tent of the Testimony.

²²After that, the Levites went in to do their service in the Tent of Meeting before Aaron and before his sons: as the LORD had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them.

³⁹and Zadok the priest and his brothers the priests, before the LORD’s tabernacle in the high place that was at Gibeon, ⁴⁰to offer burnt offerings to the LORD on the altar of burnt offering continually morning and evening, even according to all that is written in the LORD’s law, which he commanded to Israel;