When the community assembled against Moses and Aaron, they turned toward the tent of meeting – and the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared.

They must join with you, and they will be responsible for the care of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the tent, but no unauthorized person may approach you.

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.

See, I have given the Levites all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they perform – the service of the tent of meeting.

And you may eat it in any place, you and your household, because it is your wages for your service in the tent of meeting.

Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of the blood seven times directly in front of the tent of meeting.

So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting. They then threw themselves down with their faces to the ground, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them.

And they stood before Moses and Eleazar the priest and the leaders of the whole assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting and said,

“Command the Israelites: ‘With regard to my offering, be sure to offer my food for my offering made by fire, as a pleasing aroma to me at its appointed time.’

But those who were to camp in front of the tabernacle on the east, in front of the tent of meeting, were Moses, Aaron, and his sons. They were responsible for the needs of the sanctuary and for the needs of the Israelites, but the unauthorized person who approached was to be put to death.

“When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, when the camp is ready to journey, then the Kohathites will come to carry them; but they must not touch any holy thing, or they will die. These are the responsibilities of the Kohathites with the tent of meeting.

“‘Then the Nazirite must shave his consecrated head at the entrance to the tent of meeting and must take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire where the peace offering is burning.

Now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the atonement lid that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim. Thus he spoke to him.

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.”

After this, the Levites went in to do their work in the tent of meeting before Aaron and before his sons. As the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did.

And those men said to him, “We are ceremonially defiled by the dead body of a man; why are we kept back from offering the Lord’s offering at its appointed time among the Israelites?”

But the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin.

“Also in the time when you rejoice, such as on your appointed festivals or at the beginnings of your months, you must blow with your trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, so that they may become a memorial for you before your God: I am the Lord your God.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Gather to me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know are elders of the people and officials over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting; let them take their position there with you.

and you make an offering by fire to the Lord from the herd or from the flock (whether a burnt offering or a sacrifice for discharging a vow or as a freewill offering or in your solemn feasts) to create a pleasing aroma to the Lord,