Deuteronomy 18

Offerings for Priests and Levites

1 The Levitical priests—indeed, the whole tribe of Levi—are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the food offerings presented to theLord, for that is their inheritance.

2 They shall have no inheritance among their fellow Israelites; theLordis their inheritance, as he promised them.

3 This is the share due 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 grain, new wine and olive oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep,

5 for theLordyour God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in theLord’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 theLordwill choose,

7 he may minister in the name of theLordhis God like all his fellow Levites who serve there in the presence of theLord.

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 theLordyour 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 practices 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 theLord; because of these same detestable practices theLordyour God will drive out those nations before you.

13 You must be blameless before theLordyour God.

The Prophet

14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, theLordyour God has not permitted you to do so.

15 TheLordyour 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 theLordyour God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of theLordour God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 TheLordsaid 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 theLord?”

22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of theLorddoes not take place or come true, that is a message theLordhas not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.

—https://d1b84921e69nmq.cloudfront.net/3/32k/DEU/18-7662d6fcd645faf01cf28be369c79f2c.mp3?version_id=111—

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