“Do not allow the tribe of the families of the Kohathites to be cut off from among the Levites;

“Take the Levites from among the Israelites and purify them.

“Separate yourselves from among this community, that I may consume them in an instant.”

“Take a census of the Kohathites from among the Levites, by their families and by their clans,

And so you are to separate the Levites from among the Israelites, and the Levites will be mine.

“Get away from this community, so that I can consume them in an instant!” But they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground.

“Look, I myself have taken the Levites from among the Israelites instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the Israelites. So the Levites belong to me,

They and all that they had went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed over them. So they perished from among the community.

I myself have chosen your brothers the Levites from among the Israelites. They are given to you as a gift from the Lord, to perform the duties of the tent of meeting.

When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand,

Why should the name of our father be lost from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among the relatives of our father.”

For they are entirely given to me from among the Israelites. I have taken them for myself instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn sons of all the Israelites.

I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites, to do the work for the Israelites in the tent of meeting, and to make atonement for the Israelites, so there will be no plague among the Israelites when the Israelites come near the sanctuary.”

But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person must be cut off from among the community, because he has polluted the sanctuary of the Lord; the water of purification was not sprinkled on him, so he is unclean.