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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /><title>Leviticus 21 ESV</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/chapnew2.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/leviticus/21.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="../topmenuchap/leviticus/21-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="http://biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="../">ESV</a> > Leviticus 21</div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../leviticus/20.htm" title="Leviticus 20">◄</a> Leviticus 21 <a href="../leviticus/22.htm" title="Leviticus 22">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="99%" valign="top">English Standard Version</td><td width="1%" valign="top"><a href="/p/esv/nas/leviticus/21.shtml" style="color:#001320" title="Parallel Chapters"> Par ▾ </a></tr></table></div></a><div class="chap"><p class="heading">Holiness and the Priests</p><p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-1.htm"><b>1</b></a></span>And the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-2.htm"><b>2</b></a></span>except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-3.htm"><b>3</b></a></span>or his virgin sister (who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may make himself unclean). <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-4.htm"><b>4</b></a></span>He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-5.htm"><b>5</b></a></span>They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-6.htm"><b>6</b></a></span>They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>’s food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-7.htm"><b>7</b></a></span>They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-8.htm"><b>8</b></a></span>You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>, who sanctify you, am holy. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-9.htm"><b>9</b></a></span>And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-10.htm"><b>10</b></a></span>“The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-11.htm"><b>11</b></a></span>He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-12.htm"><b>12</b></a></span>He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-13.htm"><b>13</b></a></span>And he shall take a wife in her virginity.<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="Or a young wife">a</a></sup></span> <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-14.htm"><b>14</b></a></span>A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="Hebrew young woman">b</a></sup></span> of his own people, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-15.htm"><b>15</b></a></span>that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> who sanctifies him.”</p> <p class="regular"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-16.htm"><b>16</b></a></span>And the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> spoke to Moses, saying, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-17.htm"><b>17</b></a></span>“Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-18.htm"><b>18</b></a></span>For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-19.htm"><b>19</b></a></span>or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-20.htm"><b>20</b></a></span>or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-21.htm"><b>21</b></a></span>No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span>’s food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-22.htm"><b>22</b></a></span>He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-23.htm"><b>23</b></a></span>but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries,<span class="footnote"><sup><a href="#footnotes" title="Or my holy precincts">c</a></sup></span> for I am the <span class="divine-name">Lord</span> who sanctifies them.” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/leviticus/21-24.htm"><b>24</b></a></span>So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel.</p><A name="footnotes"></a><hr size="1" color="DDEEFF"><span class="mainfootnotes"><span class="mainfootnoteshdg">Footnotes:</span><br><span class="footnotesbot">a</span> <span class="fnverse">13</span> Or <i>a young wife</i><br /><span class="footnotesbot">b</span> <span class="fnverse">14</span> Hebrew <i>young woman</i><br /><span class="footnotesbot">c</span> <span class="fnverse">23</span> Or <i>my holy precincts</i><br /></span></div></div><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">ESV Text Edition® (2016).<br /><br />The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by <a href="http://www.crossway.org/home/esv/">Crossway Bibles</a>, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 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