# Leviticus 21

> Lumin Translation

Source: https://www.lumin.faith/read/leviticus/21

Lumin’s own translation, drafted with AI from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, checked verse by verse against them, and approved by Lumin. Brackets mark verses not found in the earliest manuscripts.

How it was made: https://www.lumin.faith/lumin-translation.md

1. Yahweh said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: A priest must not make himself unclean for a dead person among his people,
2. except for a close relative: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother,
3. or his virgin sister who is close to him because she has no husband; for her he may make himself unclean.
4. He must not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself.
5. Priests must not shave bald spots on their heads, shave off the edges of their beards, or cut gashes in their bodies.
6. They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God, for they present Yahweh’s fire offerings, the food of their God; so they must be holy.
7. They must not marry a woman who is a prostitute or who has been defiled, and they must not marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.
8. You must regard him as holy, for he presents the food of your God. He is to be holy to you, for I, Yahweh, who sanctify you, am holy.
9. If a priest’s daughter profanes herself by prostitution, she profanes her father; she must be burned in the fire.
10. The high priest, the one chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been ordained to wear the garments, must not let the hair of his head hang loose or tear his garments.
11. He must not go near any dead body; he must not make himself unclean even for his father or his mother.
12. He must not leave the sanctuary or profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of his God’s anointing oil is on him. I am Yahweh.
13. He is to marry a woman who is a virgin.
14. He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a defiled woman, a prostitute. He is to marry a virgin from his own people,
15. so that he does not profane his offspring among his people, for I am Yahweh, who sanctifies him.”
16. Yahweh spoke to Moses:
17. “Speak to Aaron: None of your descendants throughout their generations who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God.
18. No one who has a defect may come near: no one who is blind or lame, or who has a disfigured face or a deformed limb,
19. no one who has a broken foot or a broken hand,
20. or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or has a defect in his eye, or has a festering rash or scabs, or has crushed testicles.
21. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has a defect may come near to present Yahweh’s fire offerings. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.
22. He may eat the food of his God, both the most holy things and the holy things,
23. but he must not go in to the curtain or come near the altar, because he has a defect. He must not profane my holy places, for I am Yahweh, who sanctifies them.”
24. So Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites.

## Nearby chapters

[Leviticus 20](https://www.lumin.faith/read/leviticus/20.md)
[Leviticus 22](https://www.lumin.faith/read/leviticus/22.md)

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