The Levites must be ready to serve God
5 Again the Lord spoke to Moses. He said, 6 ‘Take the Levites from among the Israelites and make them clean. 7 This is how you will do it: Splash on them the water that makes people clean. They must remove all the hair from their whole body, and they must wash their clothes. Then they will be clean. 8 Then they must take a bull with the proper grain offering and oil. And you must take another bull for a sin offering. 9 Then you must bring the Levites in front of the Tent of Meeting. You must also bring all the Israelites together there. 10 You must bring the Levites in front of the Lord. Then the Israelites must put their hands on the Levites' heads. 11 Aaron must give the Levites to the Lord as a special offering from the Israelites. Then they will be ready to do the Lord's work.
12 Then the Levites must put their hands on the heads of the bulls. Then offer one bull for a sin offering and the other one for a burnt offering to the Lord. That will make the Levites clean from their sins. 13 And you must cause the Levites to stand in front of Aaron and his sons. So they will be a special gift to the Lord. 14 That is how you will make the Levites separate from the other Israelites. And then the Levites will belong to me.
8:12The burnt offering showed that Levi's tribe were giving themselves to God completely. The sin offering made them clean from sin.
15 After that, the Levites will go in to work in the Tent of Meeting. But you must make them clean and you must bring them to me as a special gift. 16 That is because all the Levites among the Israelites are mine. All the Israelites' firstborn sons are mine. But I have taken the Levites for myself instead. 17 Every firstborn son among the Israelites is mine. And all the firstborn male animals are mine too. On the day that I killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt, I kept the Israelite firstborn sons safe. So they belong to me in a special way.
18 But I have not taken all the firstborn sons among the Israelites. Instead, I have taken the Levites. 19 I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the Israelites. They will work at the Tent of Meeting on behalf of the Israelites. They will make the Israelites clean from their sins. So there will not be a bad disease among the Israelites when they go near to God's holy tent.’
20 So Moses and Aaron and all the Israelites did to the Levites everything that the Lord had commanded Moses to do. 21 The Levites made themselves clean and they washed their clothes. Then Aaron brought them in front of Lord as a special gift. Aaron also burnt sacrifices to make them clean. 22 After that, the Levites went into the Tent of Meeting to do their work. They helped Aaron and his sons. The Israelites did everything with the Levites that the Lord had commanded Moses about them.
23 Then the Lord spoke to Moses again. He said, 24 ‘These are the rules about the Levites: The men who are 25 years old or older must go in to work in the Tent of Meeting. 25 But they must stop that work when they are 50 years old. They must not do this work any more. 26 But they can help the other Levites in the Tent of Meeting. They can help them to do their jobs. But they must not have any of their own jobs. Those are the rules about the Levites and their jobs.’
