Deuteronomy 18:1-19:14

New International Version - UK

Offerings for priests and Levites

18 The Levitical priests – indeed, the whole tribe of Levi – are to have no land allotted to them or any inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the food offerings presented to the Lord, for that is their inheritance. ² They shall have no inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.

³ This is the share due to the priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the internal organs and the meat from the head. ⁴ You are to give them the firstfruits of your corn, new wine and olive oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep, ⁵ for the Lord your God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the Lord’s name always.

⁶ If a Levite moves from one of your towns anywhere in Israel where he is living, and comes in all earnestness to the place the Lord will choose, ⁷ he may minister in the name of the Lord his God like all his fellow Levites who serve there in the presence of the Lord. ⁸ He is to share equally in their benefits even though he has received money from the sale of family possessions.

Occult practices

⁹ When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. ¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practises divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, ¹¹ or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. ¹² Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. ¹³ You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

The prophet

¹⁴ The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practise sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. ¹⁵ The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire any more, or we will die.’

¹⁷ The Lord said to me: ‘What they say is good. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. ¹⁹ I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. ²⁰ But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.’

²¹ You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?’ ²² If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.

Cities of refuge

19 When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land he is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses, ² then set aside for yourselves three cities in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³ Determine the distances involved and divide into three parts the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that a person who kills someone may flee for refuge to one of these cities.

⁴ This is the rule concerning anyone who kills a person and flees there for safety – anyone who kills a neighbour unintentionally, without malice aforethought. ⁵ For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbour to cut wood, and as he swings his axe to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbour and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. ⁶ Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him in a rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and kill him even though he is not deserving of death, since he did it to his neighbour without malice aforethought. ⁷ This is why I command you to set aside for yourselves three cities.

⁸ If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he promised on oath to your ancestors, and gives you the whole land he promised them, ⁹ because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today – to love the Lord your God and to walk always in obedience to him – then you are to set aside three more cities. ¹⁰ Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.

¹¹ But if out of hate someone lies in wait, assaults and kills a neighbour, and then flees to one of these cities, ¹² the killer shall be sent for by the town elders, be brought back from the city, and be handed over to the avenger of blood to die. ¹³ Show no pity. You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.

¹⁴ Do not move your neighbour’s boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.