Numbers 18:20-24 - Duties Of The Levites

²⁰ Then the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in the land [of the Israelites], nor have any portion [of land] among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel.

²¹ “Behold, I have given the Levites all the tithe in Israel as an inheritance, in return for their service which they perform, the service of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle). ²² The Israelites shall never again approach the Tent of Meeting [the covered sanctuary, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies], or they [who do] will incur sin and die. ²³ Only the Levites shall perform the service of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that the Levites shall have no inheritance [of land] among the children of Israel. ²⁴ But the tithe of the Israelites, which they present as an offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance; therefore I have said to them, ‘They shall have no inheritance among the children of Israel.’”

⁴⁷ The Levites, however, were not numbered among them by their fathers’ tribe. ⁴⁸ For the Lord had said to Moses, ⁴⁹ “Only the tribe of Levi you shall not number, nor shall you take their census among the sons of Israel [since they are unavailable to go to war]. ⁵⁰ But appoint the Levites over the tabernacle (sanctuary) of the Testimony, and over all its furnishings and all things that belong to it. They shall carry the tabernacle [when traveling] and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it and camp around it. ⁵¹ When the tabernacle is to go forward, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to [be set up for] camp, the Levites shall set it up. But the layman (non-Levite) who approaches the tabernacle shall be put to death.

⁵² The Israelites shall camp according to their armies, every man by his own camp and every man by his own [tribal] standard (banner). ⁵³ But the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the Testimony, so that there will be no wrath against the congregation of the Israelites. The Levites shall be in charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony.” ⁵⁴ Thus the sons of Israel did these things; according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so they did.