Deuteronomy 18

1The Levitical priests, and indeed the whole tribe of Levi, will receive no portion and no inheritance alongside Israel. They will eat from the food offerings of the LORD, since these are their inheritance. 2Among the other tribes Levi will own nothing as an inheritance; the LORD is his inheritance, as he told him.

3This is what the priests are owed by the people who offer a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they are to give the priest the shoulder, the jaws and the stomach. 4Give him as well the first of your grain, of your new wine and of your olive oil, and the first wool your sheep yield at shearing. 5Out of all your tribes it is he whom the LORD your God has chosen, he and his sons, to stand and serve in the name of the LORD for all time.

6Suppose a Levite comes from one of your towns anywhere in Israel where he has been living, and he comes because he longs with all his heart to go to the place the LORD will choose, 7he may serve in the name of the LORD his God just as all the other Levites do who stand there before the LORD. 8They are to eat equal shares, even if he has money from selling what came to him from his family.

9When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn from those nations to do the detestable things they do. 10No one among you is to make a son or daughter pass through the fire, or practice divination, or tell fortunes, or read omens, or practice sorcery, 11or cast spells, or consult a medium or a spiritist, or seek answers from the dead. 12The LORD detests anyone who does these things. It is for these detestable practices that the LORD your God is driving those nations out before you. 13You are to be blameless in your loyalty to the LORD your God.

14The nations you are about to dispossess pay attention to fortune-tellers and diviners. But the LORD your God has not allowed you to do the same. 15The LORD your God will raise up a prophet for you like me, one of your own fellow Israelites from among you. It is to him you must listen. 16It is what you requested from the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘I must not hear the voice of the LORD my God again or look at this great fire any longer, or I will die.’ 17Then the LORD said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18From among their fellow Israelites I will raise up a prophet for them who is like you. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will pass on to them all that I command him. 19If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will hold that person responsible. 20But a prophet who dares to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.’ 21You may wonder, ‘How are we to recognize a word that the LORD has not spoken?’ 22When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and his word does not happen or come true, the LORD did not speak that word. The prophet spoke it presumptuously; do not be afraid of him.