And said to them, You are the heads of the families of the Levites: make yourselves holy, you and your brothers, so that you may take the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place which I have made ready for it.
Go out of Babylon, go in flight from the Chaldaeans; with the sound of song make it clear, give the news, let the word go out even to the end of the earth: say, The Lord has taken up the cause of his servant Jacob.
And they will take your countrymen out of all the nations for an offering to the Lord, on horses, and in carriages, and in carts, and on asses, and on camels, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel take their offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.
Put up guiding pillars, make road signs for yourself: give attention to the highway, even the way in which you went: be turned again, O virgin of Israel, be turned to these your towns.
Go in flight out of Babylon, so that every man may keep his life; do not be cut off in her evil-doing: for it is the time of the Lord's punishment; he will give her her reward.
And they are to make clear to my people the division between what is holy and what is common, and to give them the knowledge of what is clean and what is unclean.
Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord said, I will be holy in the eyes of all those who come near to me, and I will be honoured before all the people. And Aaron said nothing.
Let them be holy to their God and not make the name of their God common; for the fire offerings of the Lord and the bread of their God are offered by them, and they are to be holy.
And a number of nations will be joined to the Lord in that day, and will become my people; and I will be living among you, and you will see that the Lord of armies has sent me to you.
And he said to the people, Come away now from the tents of these evil men, without touching anything of theirs, or you may be taken in the punishment of their sins.
And anyone touching one who has been put to death with the sword in the open country, or the body of one who has come to his end by a natural death, or a man's bone, or the resting-place of a dead body, will be unclean for seven days.
And he said to them, You yourselves have knowledge that it is against the law for a man who is a Jew to be in the company of one who is of another nation; but God has made it clear to me that no man may be named common or unclean:
I am conscious of this, and am certain in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself; but for the man in whose opinion it is unclean, for him it is unclean.
My loved ones, I make this request with all my heart, that, as those for whom this world is a strange country, you will keep yourselves from the desires of the flesh which make war against the soul;
You, as living stones, are being made into a house of the spirit, a holy order of priests, making those offerings of the spirit which are pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.