Numbers 18:7
Good News Translation
But you and your sons alone shall fulfill all the responsibilities of the priesthood that concern the altar and what is in the Most Holy Place. These things are your responsibility, because I have given you the gift of the priesthood. Any unqualified person who comes near the sacred objects shall be put to death."

New Revised Standard Version
But you and your sons with you shall diligently perform your priestly duties in all that concerns the altar and the area behind the curtain. I give your priesthood as a gift; any outsider who approaches shall be put to death.

Contemporary English Version
But only you and your sons can serve as priests at the altar and in the most holy place. Your work as priests is a gift from me, and anyone else who tries to do that work must be put to death.

New American Bible
But you and your sons with you must take care to exercise your priesthood in whatever concerns the altar and the area within the veil. I give you your priesthood as a gift. Any unauthorized person who comes near shall be put to death.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But thou and thy sons look ye to the priesthood: and all things that pertain to the service of the altar, and that are within the veil, shall be executed by the priests. If any stranger shall approach, he shall be slain.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

But thou and thy sons look ye to the priesthood: and all things that pertain to the service of the altar, and that are within the veil, shall be executed by the priests. If any stranger shall approach, he shall be slain.

Therefore thou.

Numbers 18:5 Watch ye in the charge of the sanctuary, and in the ministry of the altar: lest indignation rise upon the children of Israel.

Numbers 3:10 To Aaron and to his sons, to whom they are delivered by the children of Israel. But thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons over the service of priesthood. The stranger that approacheth to minister, shall be put to death.

within

Leviticus 16:2,12-14 And he commanded him, saying: Speak to Aaron thy brother, that he enter not at all into the sanctuary, which is within the veil before the propitiatory, with which the ark is covered, lest he die, (for I will appear in a cloud over the oracle), . . .

Hebrews 9:3-6 And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies: . . .

as a service

Numbers 16:5-7 And speaking to Core and all the multitude, he said: In the morning the Lord will make known who belong to him, and the holy he will join to himself: and whom he shall choose, they shall approach to him. . . .

1 Samuel 2:28 And I chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, and burn incense to me, and to wear the ephod before me: and I gave to thy father's house of all the sacrifices of the children of Israel.

John 3:27 John answered and said: A man cannot receive any thing, unless it be given him from heaven.

Romans 15:15,16 But I have written to you, brethren, more boldly in some sort, as it were putting you in mind, because of the grace which is given me from God, . . .

Ephesians 3:8 To me, the least of all the saints, is given this grace, to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ:

Hebrews 5:4 Neither doth any man take the honour to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.

the stranger

Numbers 18:4 But let them be with thee, and watch in the charge of the tabernacle, and in all the ceremonies thereof. A stranger shall not join himself with you.

Numbers 3:38 Before the tabernacle of the covenant, that is to say on the east side shall Moses and Aaron camp, with their sons, having the custody of the sanctuary, in the midst of the children of Israel. What stranger soever cometh unto it, shall be put to death.

Numbers 16:40 That the children of Israel might have for the time to come wherewith they should be admonished, that no stranger or any one that is not of the seed of Aaron should come near to offer incense to the Lord, lest he should suffer as Core suffered, and all his congregation, according as the Lord spoke to Moses.

Context
Duties of Priests and Levites
6I have given you your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel, and have delivered them for a gift to the Lord, to serve in the ministries of the tabernacle. 7But thou and thy sons look ye to the priesthood: and all things that pertain to the service of the altar, and that are within the veil, shall be executed by the priests. If any stranger shall approach, he shall be slain.
Cross References
Matthew 10:8
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: freely have you received, freely give.

Hebrews 5:4
Neither doth any man take the honour to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.

1 Peter 5:2
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre's sake but voluntarily:

1 Peter 5:3
Neither as lording it over the clergy but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart.

Exodus 28:1
Take unto thee also Aaron thy brother with his sons, from among the children of Israel, that they may minister to me in the priest's office: Aaron, Nadab, and Abiu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

Exodus 29:9
To wit, Aaron and his children, and thou shalt put mitres upon them; and they shall be priests to me by a perpetual ordinance. After thou shalt have consecrated their hands,

Numbers 1:51
When you are to go forward, the Levites shall take down the tabernacle: when you are to camp, they shall set it up. What stranger soever cometh to it, shall be slain.

Numbers 18:3
And the Levites shall watch to do thy commands, and about all the works of the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary nor the altar, lest both they die, and you also perish with them.

Numbers 18:20
And the Lord said to Aaron: You shall possess nothing in their land, neither shall you have a portion among them: I am thy portion and inheritance in the midst of the children of Israel.

Deuteronomy 18:2
And they shall receive nothing else of the possession of their brethren: for the Lord himself is their inheritance, as he hath said to them.

Joshua 18:7
For the Levites have no part among you, but the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad and Ruben, and the half tribe of Manasses have already received their possessions beyond the Jordan eastward: which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them.

Ezekiel 44:8
And you have not kept the ordinances of my sanctuary: but you have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves.

Ezekiel 44:15
But the priests, and Levites, the sons of Sadoc, who kept the ceremonies of my sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me, to minister to me: and they shall stand before me, to offer me the fat, and the blood, saith the Lord God.

Ezekiel 44:16
They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and to keep my ceremonies.

Numbers 18:6
Top of Page
Top of Page