Deuteronomy 18

Deuteronomy 18

New King James Version (NKJV)

The Portion of the Priests and Levites

18 “The priests, the Levites—all the tribe of Levi—shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and His portion. ² Therefore they shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the Lord is their inheritance, as He said to them.

³ “And this shall be the priest’s due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it is bull or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach. ⁴ The firstfruits of your grain and your new wine and your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. ⁵ For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons forever.
⁶ “So if a Levite comes from any of your gates, from where he dwells among all Israel, and comes with all the desire of his mind to the place which the Lord chooses, ⁷ then he may serve in the name of the Lord his God as all his brethren the Levites do, who stand there before the Lord. ⁸ They shall have equal portions to eat, besides what comes from the sale of his inheritance.

Avoid Wicked Customs

⁹ “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, ¹¹ or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. ¹² For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. ¹³ You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. ¹⁴ For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.

A New Prophet Like Moses

¹⁵ “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, ¹⁶ according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’
¹⁷ “And the Lord said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. ¹⁹ And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him. ²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’— ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.