Deuteronomy 18

Guidelines for Priests, Prophets, and the Prohibition of Divination Practices

3 min read

1 The priests the Levites, and 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 inheritance.
2 Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brothers: the LORD is their inheritance, as he has said to them. ¶
3 And this shall be the priest’s due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give to the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw.
4 The first fruit also of your corn, of your wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, shall you 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 for ever. ¶
6 And if a Levite come from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind to the place which the LORD shall choose;
7 Then he shall minister in the name of the LORD his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, which stand there before the LORD.
8 They shall have like portions to eat, beside that which comes of the sale of his patrimony. ¶
9 When you are come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination to the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD your God does drive them out from before you.
13 You shall be perfect with the LORD your God.
14 For these nations, which you shall possess, listened to observers of times, and to diviners: but as for you, the LORD your God has not suffered you so to do. ¶
15 The LORD your God will raise up to you a Prophet from the middle of you, of your brothers, like to me; to him you shall listen;
16 According to all that 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, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
17 And the LORD said to me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brothers, like to you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.
19 And it shall come to pass, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even 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 follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously: you shall not be afraid of him.
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