Leviticus 21

Holiness and the Priests

1 And the  Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, a No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, 2 except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, 3 or his virgin sister (who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may make himself unclean). 4 He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself. 5  b They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body. 6 They shall be holy to their God and c not profane the name of their God. For they offer the  Lord’s food offerings, d the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy. 7  e They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman f divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. 8 You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for g I, the  Lord, who sanctify you, h am holy. 9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; i she shall be burned with fire.

10  j “The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments k shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. 11 He shall not l go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. 12  m He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he n profane the sanctuary of his God, for the o consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the  Lord. 13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. ▼
▼ Or a young wife
 14 A widow, q or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin ▼
▼ Hebrew young woman
 of his own people, 15 that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for s I am the  Lord who sanctifies him.”

16 And the  Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may t approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man u blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face v or a limb too long, 19 or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, 20 or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a w defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or x crushed testicles. 21 No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to y offer the  Lord’s food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. 22 He may eat the bread of his God, both of z the most holy and of the aa holy things, 23 but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not ab profane my sanctuaries, ac for I am the  Lord who sanctifies them.” 24 So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel.

Copyright information for ESV