¹¹ Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: `Ask, I pray thee, the priests `of' the law, saying:

⁷ For the lips of a priest preserve knowledge, And law they do seek from his mouth, For a messenger of Jehovah of Hosts he `is'.

¹⁰ so as to make a separation between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the pure;

¹¹ and to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which Jehovah hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.'

⁸ `When anything is too hard for thee for judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke -- matters of strife within thy gates -- then thou hast risen, and gone up unto the place on which Jehovah thy God doth fix,

⁹ and hast come in unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge who is in those days, and hast inquired, and they have declared to thee the word of judgment,

¹⁰ and thou hast done according to the tenor of the word which they declare to thee (`they' of that place which Jehovah doth choose; and thou hast observed to do according to all that they direct thee.

¹¹ `According to the tenor of the law which they direct thee, and according to the judgment which they say to thee thou dost do; thou dost not turn aside from the word which they declare to thee, right or left.

¹⁰ They teach Thy judgments to Jacob, And Thy law to Israel; They put perfume in Thy nose, And whole burnt-offering on Thine altar.

²³ `And My people they direct between holy and common, and between unclean and clean they cause them to discern.

²⁴ And concerning controversy, they stand up for judgment; with My judgments they judge it; and My law and My statutes in all My appointed places they keep; and My sabbaths they sanctify.

⁹ holding -- according to the teaching -- to the stedfast word, that he may be able also to exhort in the sound teaching, and the gainsayers to convict;