minister before me and perform my service.
17 ' 'When they enter the gates of the inner court, they are to wear linen clothes; they must not wear any woolen garment while ministering at the gates of the inner court or inside the temple.
18 They are to wear linen turbans on their heads and linen undergarments around their waists. They must not wear anything that makes them perspire.
19 When they go out into the outer court where the people are, they are to take off the clothes they have been ministering in and are to leave them in the sacred rooms, and put on other clothes, so that they do not consecrate the people by means of their garments.
20 ' 'They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but they are to keep the hair of their heads trimmed.
21 No priest is to drink wine when he enters the inner court.
22 They must not marry widows or divorced women; they may marry only virgins of Israelite descent or widows of priests.
23 They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.
24 ' 'In any dispute, the priests are to serve as judges and decide it according to my ordinances. They are to keep my laws and my decrees for all my appointed feasts, and they are to keep my Sabbaths holy.
25 ' 'A priest must not defile himself by going near a dead person; however, if the dead person was his father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister, then he may defile himself.
26 After he is cleansed, he must wait seven days.
27 On the day he goes into the inner court of the sanctuary to minister in the sanctuary, he is to offer a sin offering for himself, declares the Sovereign LORD .
28 ' 'I am to be the only inheritance the priests have. You are to give them no possession in Israel; I will be their possession.
29 They will eat the grain offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings; and everything in Israel devoted to the LORD will belong to them.
30 The best of all the firstfruits and of all your special gifts will belong to the priests. You are to give them the first portion of your ground meal so that a blessing may rest on your household.
31 The priests must not eat anything, bird or animal, found dead or torn by wild animals.
45 ' 'When you allot the land as an inheritance, you are to present to the LORD a portion of the land as a sacred district, 25,000 cubits long and 20,000 cubits wide; the entire area will be holy.
2 Of this, a section 500 cubits square is to be for the sanctuary, with 50 cubits around it for open land.
3 In the sacred district, measure off a section 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 cubits wide. In it will be the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.
4 It will be the sacred portion of the land for the priests, who minister in the sanctuary and who draw near to minister before the LORD . It will be a place for their houses as well as a holy place for the sanctuary.
5 An area 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 cubits wide will belong to the Levites, who serve in the temple, as their possession for towns to live in.
6 ' 'You are to give the city as its property an area 5,000 cubits wide and 25,000 cubits long, adjoining the sacred portion; it will belong to the whole house of Israel.
7 ' 'The prince will have the land bordering each side of the area formed by the sacred district and the property of the city. It will extend westward from the west side and eastward from the east side, running lengthwise from the western to the eastern border parallel to one of the tribal portions.
8 This land will be his possession in Israel. And my princes will no longer oppress my people but will allow the house of Israel to possess the land according to their tribes.
9 ' 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: You have gone far enough, O princes of Israel! Give up your violence and oppression and do what is just and right. Stop dispossessing my people, declares the Sovereign LORD .
10 You are to use accurate scales, an accurate ephah and an accurate bath.
11 The ephah and the bath are to be the same size, the bath containing a tenth of a homer and the ephah a tenth of a homer; the homer is to be the standard measure for both.
12 The shekel is to consist of twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels equal one mina.
13 ' 'This is the special gift you are to offer: a sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat and a sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley.
14 The prescribed portion of oil, measured by the bath, is a tenth of a bath from each cor (which consists of ten baths or one homer, for ten baths are equivalent to a homer).
15 Also one sheep is to be taken from every flock of two hundred from the well- watered pastures of Israel. These will be used for the grain offerings, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to make atonement for the people, declares the Sovereign LORD .
16 All the people of the land will participate in this special gift for the use of the prince in Israel.
