The Lord said to Aaron, “You will have no land or property of your own as the other Israelites will have. I am your possession and your property among the Israelites.
Only you and your sons may do the work of priests—everything done at the altar and under the canopy. This is my gift to you: You may serve me as priests. Anyone else who comes near ⌞the holy place to do this work⌟ must die.”
The total number of all the ⌞Levite⌟ males at least one month old was 23,000. They were not counted along with the other Israelites, because they were given no land of their own.
Enjoy yourselves in the presence of the Lord your God along with your sons, daughters, male and female slaves, and the Levites. (The Levites live in your cities because they have no land of their own as you have.)
Foreigners, orphans, and widows who live in your cities may come to eat all they want. The Levites may also come because they have no land of their own as you have. Then the Lord your God will bless you in whatever work you do.
Moses did not give any land as an inheritance to the tribe of Levi. The sacrifices offered to the Lord God of Israel are what the Levites inherited, as the Lord had promised them.
Levi’s tribe has no separate region among you, because their inheritance is to serve the Lord as priests. The tribes of Gad and Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh have received the inheritance that the Lord’s servant Moses gave them on the east side of the Jordan River.”
I heard a loud voice from the throne say, “God lives with humans! God will make his home with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God.