Deuteronomy 18
- 1
The Levitical priests—indeed, the entire tribe of Levi—will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance.
- 2
They will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.
- 3
This shall be the priests’ fair allotment from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep—they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach.
- 4
You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.
- 5
For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in his name permanently.
- 6
Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, to the place the Lord chooses
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and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord.
- 8
He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance.
- 9
When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations.
- 10
There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,
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one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer.
- 12
Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you.
- 13
You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
- 14
Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.
- 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
This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this great fire anymore lest we die.”
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The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good.
- 18
I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.
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I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.
- 20
“But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.
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Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’—
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whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”