¹Then he brought me back by the way of the gate of the sanctuary, the outer one, which faces east, and it was closed up.

²And Yahweh said to me, This gate will be closed up; it will not be opened, and no man will come in by it, for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has come in by it; so it will be closed up.

³As for the prince, a prince is he: he will sit in it to eat food before the face of Yahweh; by the way of the porch of the gate he will come in, and by the same way he will go out.

⁴Then he brought me by the way of the north gate to the face of the house, and I saw, and behold, the weightiness of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh, and I fell on my face.

⁵And Yahweh said to me, Son of man, put your heart and see with your eyes and hear with your ears all which I spoke to you of all the statutes of the house of Yahweh and of all its instruction; and put your heart to the entrance of the house in all the startings of the sanctuary.

⁶And say to the rebellion, to the house of Israel, Thus says the Adonai Yahweh: Too much for you are all your abominations, house of Israel,

⁷in your bringing in children of foreigners, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to profane it, my house, in your bringing near my food, fat and blood; and they broke my covenant, in addition to all your abominations.

⁸And you did not keep the duty of my holy things, but you set keepers of my duty in my sanctuary for yourselves.

⁹Thus says the Adonai Yahweh: No son of foreigners, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh, will come into my sanctuary, nor any son of foreigners who is among the children of Israel.

¹⁰But the Levites who became distant from me when Israel wandered about, who wandered about from me after their idols, they will bear their guilt.

¹¹And they will be in my sanctuary serving, with oversight at the gates of the house and serving the house; they will slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they will stand before their face to serve them.

¹²Because they served them before the face of their idols and became, for the house of Israel, a stumbling-block of guilt, therefore I lifted up my hand against them, the utterance of the Adonai Yahweh, and they will bear their guilt.

¹³And they will not draw near to me to act as priest for me, nor to draw near to any of my holy things, to the most holy things; and they will bear their disgrace and their abominations which they did.

¹⁴But I will set them as keepers of the duty of the house, for all its service, and for all that will be done in it.

¹⁵But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept the duty of my sanctuary when the children of Israel wandered about from me, they will draw near to me to serve me, and they will stand before my face to bring near to me fat and blood, the utterance of the Adonai Yahweh.

¹⁶They will come into my sanctuary, and they will draw near to my table to serve me, and they will keep my duty.

¹⁷And it will be that when they come to the gates of the inner court, they will be clothed in garments of linen; and no wool will go up on them while they serve in the gates of the inner court and within the house.

¹⁸Turbans of linen will be on their head, and undergarments of linen will be on their loins; they will not gird themselves in sweat.

¹⁹And when they go out to the outer court, to the outer court to the people, they will take off their garments in which they were serving, and set them down in the rooms of the holy place, and put on other garments, and they will not set apart the people by their garments.

²⁰And they will not shave their head, nor let their hair go loose; they will surely trim their heads.

²¹And no priest will drink wine when they come into the inner court.

²²And they will not take a widow or a woman driven away for themselves as wives, but virgins from the seed of the house of Israel; but the widow who is the widow of a priest they will take.

²³And they will instruct my people between the holy and the common, and they will cause them to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.

²⁴And over a strife they will stand to the justice; in my justice they will judge it; and they will keep my appointed times and my instruction and my statutes in all, and they will set apart my sabbaths.

²⁵And to a dead person they will not go to become unclean; except for a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother, or a sister who has not belonged to a man, they may make themselves unclean.

²⁶And after his cleansing, they will count seven days for him.

²⁷And on the day he goes into the holy place, into the inner court to serve in the holy place, he will bring near his sin offering, the utterance of the Adonai Yahweh.

²⁸And it will be for them an inheritance: I am their inheritance. And you will not give them a possession in Israel; I am their possession.

²⁹The grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, they will eat them; and every devoted thing in Israel will be theirs.

³⁰And the first of all the firstfruits of everything, and every contribution of every kind from all your contributions will belong to the priests; and the first of your dough you will give to the priest, to make a blessing rest on your house.

³¹Any carcass or torn animal, from birds or from livestock, the priests will not eat.