Numbers 18:21-28

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

²¹ To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for a possession in return for the service that they perform, the service in the tent of meeting. ²² From now on the Israelites shall no longer approach the tent of meeting, or else they will incur guilt and die. ²³ But the Levites shall perform the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear responsibility for their own offences; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. But among the Israelites they shall have no allotment, ²⁴ because I have given to the Levites as their portion the tithe of the Israelites, which they set apart as an offering to the Lord. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no allotment among the Israelites.

²⁵ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁶ You shall speak to the Levites, saying: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them for your portion, you shall set apart an offering from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. ²⁷ It shall be reckoned to you as your gift, the same as the grain of the threshing-floor and the fullness of the wine press. ²⁸ Thus you also shall set apart an offering to the Lord from all the tithes that you receive from the Israelites; and from them you shall give the Lord’s offering to the priest Aaron.