Leviticus 21

¹ Yahweh said to Moses: ‘Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: “None of them is to make himself unclean by going near the corpse of one of his family,

² unless it be of his closest relations – father, mother, son, daughter, brother.

³ He may also make himself unclean for his virgin sister: if she is still a close relation since she has not belonged to a man.

⁴ If a husband, he must not make himself unclean for his family; in doing so he would profane himself.

⁵ They must not wear tonsures, shave the edges of their beards, or gash their bodies.

⁶ They shall be consecrated to their God and must not profane the name of their God. For it is they who bring the burnt offerings to Yahweh, the food of their God; and they must be in a holy condition.

⁷ They must not marry a woman profaned by prostitution, or one divorced by her husband; for the priest is consecrated to his God.

⁸ You shall treat him as holy, for he offers up the food of your God. He shall be a holy person to you, because I, Yahweh, am holy, who sanctify you.

⁹ If the daughter of a man who is a priest profanes herself by prostitution, she profanes her father and must be burnt to death.

¹⁰ The priest who is pre-eminent over his brother, on whose head the chrism is poured, and who, clothed with the sacred robes, receives investiture, is not to disorder his hair or tear his garments;

¹¹ he must not go near a dead man’s corpse, he must not make himself unclean even for his father or mother.

¹² He must not leave the holy place, so that he may not profane the sanctuary of his God; for he bears on himself the consecration of his God, given by the oil of anointing. I am Yahweh.

¹³ He must take to wife a woman who is still a virgin.

¹⁴ He must not marry a woman who is a widow or divorced, or profaned by prostitution: only a virgin from his own family may he take to wife.

¹⁵ He must not profane his levitical descendants, for it is I, Yahweh, who have sanctified him.”‘

¹⁶ Yahweh spoke to Moses; he said:

¹⁷ Speak to Aaron and say: “None of your descendants, in any generation, must come forward to offer the food of his God if he has any infirmity –

¹⁸ no man must come near if he has an infirmity such as blindness or lameness, if he is disfigured or deformed,

¹⁹ if he has an injured foot or arm,

²⁰ if he is a hunchback or a dwarf, if he has a disease of the eyes or of the skin, if he has a running sore, or if he is a eunuch.

²¹ No descendant of Aaron the priest must come forward to offer the burnt offerings of Yahweh if he has any infirmity; if he has an infirmity, he must not come forward to offer the food of his God.

²² He may eat the food of his God, things most holy and things holy;

²³ but he must not go near the veil or approach the altar, because he has an infirmity, and must not profane my holy things; for it is I, Yahweh, who have sanctified them.”‘

²⁴ And Moses told this to Aaron, to his sons, and to all the sons of Israel.