And the LORD said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels; and thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me, that they die not.

for whosoever cometh nigh the dwelling of the LORD, dieth. Shall we utterly consume away?"

So the Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father’s household (family) with you shall bear the guilt in connection with the sanctuary [that is, through your service as priests you will atone for the offenses which the people unknowingly commit when brought into contact with the manifestations of God’s presence]; and you and your sons with you shall bear the guilt in connection with your priesthood [that is, your own unintentional offenses].

But bring with you also your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father (ancestor), so that they may join with you and serve you [as assistants], while you and your sons with you are before the Tent of the Testimony [the Holy Place where only priests may go, and the Most Holy Place which only the high priest may enter].

They are to perform duties for you and for the whole tent. They must not come near the sanctuary equipment or the altar; otherwise, both they and you will die.

And they shall be joined unto thee, and keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle: and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you.

You are to be responsible for the holy place and the altar, so that wrath may never again come on the children of Israel.

And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the LORD, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest's office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.

And the LORD spake unto Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of mine heave offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel; unto thee have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to thy sons, by an ordinance for ever.

This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every oblation of theirs, every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons.

As most holy things they are to be your food: let every male have them for food; it is to be holy to you.

And this is thine; the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel: I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons and to thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: every one that is clean in thy house shall eat of it.

[The] firstfruits of all that [is] in their land that they present to Yahweh will be for you; whoever [is] clean in your house may eat it.

All consecrated possessions in Israel will be for you.

The first birth of every living thing which is offered to the Lord, of man or beast, is to be yours; but for the first sons of man payment is to be made, and for the first young of unclean beasts.

And those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are holy: thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the LORD.

But their flesh will be for you like the breast section of the wave offering, and it will be for you like the right upper thigh.

All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.

Then Yahweh said to Aaron, "You will not receive an inheritance in their land, and there will not be a plot of ground for you in the midst of the {Israelites}.

And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.

For the tithe of the children of Israel, which they offer as a heave-offering unto Jehovah, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.

Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe.

Your raised offerings are to be accounted for you as though it were grain from threshing floors and full produce from wine vats.

Likewise you shall also present an offering to the Lord from all your tithes, which you receive from the Israelites; and from it you shall give the Lord’s offering to Aaron the priest.

Out of all your gifts, you shall present every offering due to the Lord, from all the best of it, even the sacred part from them.’

Tell them that when they bring the best from it, as far as the descendants of Levi are concerned, it is to be considered like produce from the threshing floors and wine vats.

And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your households: for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation.

and ye bear no sin for it, in your lifting up its fat out of it, and the holy things of the sons of Israel ye do not pollute, and ye die not.'

The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson yarn, and throw them onto the fire where the cow is burning.

And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin.

And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, for a statute for ever.

‘The one who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

he doth cleanse himself for it on the third day, and on the seventh day he is clean; and if he cleanse not himself on the third day, then on the seventh day he is not clean.

Whosoever toucheth a dead person, the body of a man that hath died, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of Jehovah; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water for impurity was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.

‘This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be [ceremonially] unclean for seven days.

Also, anyone in the open field who touches one who has been killed with a sword or who has died [of natural causes], or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:

Then the clean person shall sprinkle [the water for purification] on the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day the unclean man shall purify himself, and wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and shall be [ceremonially] clean at evening.

But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah: the water for impurity hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them: and he that sprinkleth the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he that toucheth the water for impurity shall be unclean until even.

And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.

Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?

Why have you made us come out of Egypt into this evil place? This is no place of seed or figs or vines or other fruits, and there is no water for drinking.

"Take the staff and summon the community, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will give water. Bring out for them water from the rock, and let the community and their livestock drink."

and Moses and Aaron summoned the assembly to the presence of the rock, and he said to them, "Please listen, you rebels; can we bring out water for you from this rock?"

And Jehovah will say to Moses, and to Aaron, Because ye believed not in me, to consecrate me before the eyes of the sons of Israel, for this, ye shall not bring in this gathering to the land which I gave to them.

How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we were living in Egypt for a long time; and the Egyptians were cruel to us and to our fathers:

And Edom said, You are not to go through my land, for if you do I will come out against you with the sword.

And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the high way: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only, without doing any thing else, go through on my feet.

Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah.

And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

And Jehovah saith unto Moses, 'Make for thee a burning serpent, and set it on an ensign; and it hath been, every one who is bitten and hath seen it -- he hath lived.

And Moses made a serpent of brass and set it up for a sign. And when the serpents had bitten any man, he went and beheld the serpent of brass and recovered.

From thence they removed, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites: for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

For this cause is it said, in the Book of the Wars of Yahweh, - -- Waheb with a hurricane, And the ravines of Arnon;

And Sihon would not let Israel go through his land; but got all his people together and went out against Israel into the waste land, as far as Jahaz, to make war on Israel.

And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon: for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.

For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon.

For this cause, say the poets - Enter ye Heshbon, - Built and prepared be the city of Sihon;

For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the lords of the high places of Arnon.

“We have shot them down [with arrows];
Heshbon is destroyed as far as Dibon,
And we have laid them waste as far as Nophah,
Which reaches to Medeba.”

And they turned and went up by the way to Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, for battle to Edrei.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land; and thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.

So they overcame him and his sons and his people, driving them all out: and they took his land for their heritage.

and Moab is exceedingly afraid of the presence of the people, for it is numerous; and Moab is vexed by the presence of the sons of Israel,

and he sendeth messengers unto Balaam son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the River of the land of the sons of his people, to call for him, saying, 'Lo, a people hath come out of Egypt; lo, it hath covered the eye of the land, and it is abiding over-against me;

Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.

So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian went [with] a fee for divination in their hand; they came to Balaam and spoke the words of Balak to him.

And he said unto them - Tarry ye here for the night, and I will bring you back word, as Yahweh shall speak unto me. So the princes of Moab abode with Balaam.

Lo, the people that is coming out from Egypt and covereth the eye of the land, -- now come, pierce it for me; it may be I am able to fight against it, and have cast it out;'

And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.

And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.

For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people.

But Balaam, in answer; said to the servants of Balak, Even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, it would not be possible for me to do anything more or less than the orders of the Lord my God.

Now, therefore abide here, I pray you even ye, - for the night, - that I may get to know what further Yahweh may be speaking with me.

And God cometh in unto Balaam, by night, and saith to him, 'If to call for thee the men have come, rise, go with them, and only the thing which I speak unto thee -- it thou dost do.'

And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.

Then the angel of the Lord went further, stopping in a narrow place where there was no room for turning to the right or to the left.

And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.

And the angel of Jehovah said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I am come forth for an adversary, because thy way is perverse before me:

And the ass will see me, and will turn before me this three beats: unless she turned from before me for now also I had slain thee, and preserved her alive.

And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again.

Now Balak, hearing that Balaam had come, went to the chief town of Moab, on the edge of the Arnon, in the farthest part of the land, for the purpose of meeting him.

and Balak saith unto Balaam, 'Did I not diligently sent unto thee to call for thee? why didst thou not come unto me? am I not truly able to honour thee?'

Balak sacrificed cattle and sheep, and sent for Balaam and the officials who were with him.

And Balaam saith unto Balak, 'Build for me in this place seven altars, and make ready for me in this place seven bullocks and seven rams.'

And he taketh up his simile, and saith: 'From Aram he doth lead me -- Balak king of Moab; From mountains of the east: Come -- curse for me Jacob, And come -- be indignant with Israel.

For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.

Then Balak said to Balaam, What have you done to me? I sent for you so that my haters might be cursed, and see, you have given them a blessing.

And Balak saith unto him, 'Come, I pray thee, with me unto another place, whence thou dost see it, only its extremity thou dost see, and all of it thou dost not see, and pierce it for me thence;'

And he brought him into a plain field where men might see far, even to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered an ox and a ram on every altar.

“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken and will He not make it good and fulfill it?

“God has not observed wickedness in Jacob [for he is forgiven],
Nor has He seen trouble in Israel.
The Lord their God is with Israel,
And the shout of their King is among the people.

God, who brings them out from Egypt, [is] like the strength of a wild ox for them.

For there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel. At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!