But the tents of the Levites are to be round the Tent of meeting, so that wrath may not come on the children of Israel: the Tent of meeting is to be in the care of the Levites.

In order that they may be responsible to him and to all Israel for the care of the Tent of meeting, and to do the work of the House;

Give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; so that they may be his without question from among the children of Israel.

And give orders that Aaron and his sons are to keep their place as priests; any strange person who comes near is to be put to death.

And putting over it the leather cover and over that a blue cloth; and putting its rods in place.

But do this to them, so that life and not death may be theirs when they come near the most holy things; let Aaron and his sons go in and give to every one his work and that which he is to take up;

Male or female they are to be put outside the tent-circle, so that they may not make unclean my resting-place among them.

By taking as her lover another man, and keeps it secret so that her husband has no knowledge of it, and there is no witness against her, and she is not taken in the act;

And it will be that if the woman has become unclean, sinning against her husband, when she has taken the bitter water it will go into her body, causing disease of the stomach and wasting of the legs, and she will be a curse among her people.

If death comes suddenly to a man at his side, so that he becomes unclean, let his hair be cut off on the day when he is made clean, on the seventh day.

And the priest will give one for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering to take away the sin which came on him on account of the dead, and he will make his head holy that same day.

Waving them for a wave offering before the Lord; this is holy for the priest, together with the waved breast and the leg which is lifted up; after that, the man may take wine.

This is the law for him who takes an oath to keep himself separate, and for his offering to the Lord on that account, in addition to what he may be able to get; this is the law of his oath, which he will have to keep.

And Aaron did so; he put the lights in their places so that they gave light in front of the support, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.

And Aaron is to give the Levites to the Lord as a wave offering from the children of Israel, so that they may do the Lord's work.

After that, the Levites will go in to do whatever has to be done in the Tent of meeting; you are to make them clean and give them as a wave offering.

And I have given them to Aaron and to his sons, from among the children of Israel, to undertake for them all the work of the Tent of meeting, and to take away sin from the children of Israel so that no evil may come on them when they come near the holy place.

And there were certain men who were unclean because of a dead body, so that they were not able to keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:

At the order of the Lord the children of Israel went forward, and at the order of the Lord they put up their tents: as long as the cloud was resting on the House, they did not go away from that place.

Sometimes the cloud was resting on the House for two or three days; then, by the order of the Lord, they kept their tents in that place, and when the Lord gave the order they went on.

Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of his father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, We are journeying to that place of which the Lord has said, I will give it to you: so come with us, and it will be for your profit: for the Lord has good things in store for Israel.

So that place was named Taberah, because of the fire of the Lord which had been burning among them.

And Moses said to the Lord, Why have you done me this evil? and why have I not grace in your eyes, that you have put on me the care of all this people?

Am I the father of all this people? have I given them birth, that you say to me, Take them in your arms, like a child at the breast, to the land which you gave by an oath to their fathers?

I am not able by myself to take the weight of all this people, for it is more than my strength.

And I will come down and have talk with you there: and I will take some of the spirit which is on you and put it on them, and they will take part of the weight of the people off you, so that you do not have to take it by yourself.

Are flocks and herds to be put to death for them? or are all the fish in the sea to be got together so that they may be full?

Then the Lord came down in the cloud and had talk with him, and put on the seventy men some of the spirit which was on him: now when the spirit came to rest on them, they were like prophets, but only at that time.

Then the Lord sent a wind, driving little birds from the sea, so that they came down on the tents, and all round the tent-circle, about a day's journey on this side and on that, in masses about two cubits high over the face of the earth.

And all that day and all night and the day after, the people were taking up the birds; the smallest amount which anyone got was ten homers: and they put them out all round the tents.

So that place was named Kibroth-hattaavah; because there they put in the earth the bodies of the people who had given way to their desires.

Now the man Moses was more gentle than any other man on earth.

And the cloud was moved from over the Tent; and straight away Miriam became a leper, as white as snow: and Aaron, looking at Miriam, saw that she was a leper.

And the Lord said to Moses, If her father had put a mark of shame on her, would she not be shamed for seven days? Let her be shut up outside the tent-circle for seven days, and after that she may come in again.

After that, the people went on from Hazeroth and put up their tents in the waste land of Paran.

Of the tribe of Joseph, that is of the family of Manasseh, Gaddi, the son of Susi.

They went up into the South and came to Hebron; and Ahiman and Sheshai and Talmai, the children of Anak, were living there. (Now the building of Hebron took place seven years before that of Zoan in Egypt.)

That place was named the valley of Eshcol because of the grapes which the children of Israel took from there.

But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.

And they gave the children of Israel a bad account of the land they had been to see, saying, This land through which we went is a land causing destruction to those living in it; and all the people we saw there are men of more than common size.

There we saw those great men, the sons of Anak, offspring of the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves no more than insects, and so we seemed to them.

Then all the people gave load cries of grief, and all that night they gave themselves up to weeping.

I will send disease on them for their destruction, and take away their heritage, and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

And they will give the news to the people of this land: they have had word that you, Lord, are present with this people, letting yourself be seen face to face, and that your cloud is resting over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

But my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit in him, and has been true to me with all his heart, him I will take into that land into which he went, and his seed will have it for their heritage.

And as you went through the land viewing it for forty days, so for forty years, a year for every day, you will undergo punishment for your wrongdoing, and you will see that I am against you.

And Moses said, Why are you now acting against the Lord's order, seeing that no good will come of it?

Because he had no respect for the word of the Lord, and did not keep his law, that man will be cut off without mercy and his sin will be on him.

Say to the children of Israel that through all their generations they are to put on the edges of their robes an ornament of twisted threads, and in every ornament a blue cord;

So that, looking on these ornaments, you may keep in mind the orders of the Lord and do them; and not be guided by the desires of your hearts and eyes, through which you have been untrue to me:

And that you may keep in mind all my orders and do them and be holy to your God.

I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, so that I might be your God: I am the Lord your God.

They came together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, You take overmuch on yourselves, seeing that all the people are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them; why then have you put yourselves in authority over the people of the Lord?

Does it seem only a small thing to you that the God of Israel has made you separate from the rest of Israel, letting you come near himself to do the work of the House of the Lord, and to take your place before the people to do what has to be done for them;

So you and all your band have come together against the Lord; and Aaron, who is he, that you are crying out against him?

Is it not enough that you have taken us from a land flowing with milk and honey, to put us to death in the waste land, but now you are desiring to make yourself a chief over us?

And more than this, you have not taken us into a land flowing with milk and honey, or given us a heritage of fields and vine-gardens: will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up.

Come out from among this people, so that I may send sudden destruction on them.

And Moses said, Now you will see that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and I have not done them of myself.

But if the Lord does something new, opening the earth to take them in, with everything which is theirs, and they go down living into the underworld, then it will be clear to you that the Lord has not been honoured by these men.

And all Israel round about them went in flight at their cry, For fear, said they, that we go down into the heart of the earth.

Say to Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, that he is to take out of the flames the vessels with the perfumes in them, turning the fire out of them, for they are holy;

And let the vessels of those men, who with their lives have made payment for their sin, be hammered out into plates as a cover for the altar; for they have been offered before the Lord and are holy; so that they may be a sign to the children of Israel.

To be a sign, kept in memory for ever by the children of Israel, that no man who is not of the seed of Aaron has the right of burning spices before the Lord, so that he may not be like Korah and his band: as the Lord said to him by the mouth of Moses.

Come out from among this people, so that I may send sudden destruction on them. And they went down on their faces.

Now fourteen thousand, seven hundred deaths were caused by that disease, in addition to those who came to their end because of what Korah had done.

Say to the children of Israel that they are to give you rods, one for every family, for every chief, the head of his father's house, making twelve rods; let every man's name be placed on his rod.

And the rod of that man who is marked out by me for myself will have buds on it; so I will put a stop to the outcries which the children of Israel make to me against you.

Now on the day after, Moses went into the Tent of witness; and he saw that Aaron's rod, the rod of the house of Levi, had put out buds, and was covered with buds and flowers and fruit.

And the Lord said to Moses, Put Aaron's rod back in front of the ark of witness, to be kept for a sign against this false-hearted people, so that you may put a stop to their outcries against me, and death may not overtake them.

Let your brothers, the family of Levi, come near with you, so that they may be joined with you and be your servants: but you and your sons with you are to go in before the ark of witness.

They are to do your orders and be responsible for the work of the Tent; but they may not come near the vessels of the holy place or the altar, so that death may not overtake them or 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.

Payment is to be made for these when they are a month old, at the value fixed by you, a price of five shekels by the scale of the holy place, that is, twenty gerahs to the shekel.

In future the children of Israel are not to come near the Tent of meeting, so that death may not come to them because of sin.

Say to the Levites, When you take from the children of Israel the tenth which I have given to you from them as your heritage, a tenth part of that tenth is to be offered as an offering lifted up before the Lord.

And no sin will be yours on account of it, when the best of it has been lifted up on high; you are not to make a wrong use of the holy things of the children of Israel, so that death may not overtake you.

Anyone touching the body of a dead man without making himself clean in this way, makes the House of the Lord unclean; and that man will be cut off from Israel: because the water was not put on him, he will be unclean; his unclean condition is unchanged.

These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel went against the Lord, and they saw that he was holy among them.

And when the people saw that Aaron was dead, all the children of Israel gave themselves up to weeping for him for thirty days.

And it came to the ears of the Canaanite, the king of Arad, living in the South, that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, and he came out against them and took some of them prisoners.

And the Lord, in answer to the voice of Israel, gave the Canaanites up to them; and they put them and their towns completely to destruction: and that place was named Hormah.

Then Moab said to the responsible men of Midian, It is clear that this great people will be the destruction of everything round us, making a meal of us as the ox does of the grass of the field. At that time Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of Moab.

Come now, in answer to my prayer, and put a curse on this people, for they are greater than I: and then I may be strong enough to overcome them and send them out of the land: for it is clear that good comes to him who has your blessing, but he on whom you put your curse is cursed.

And he said to them, Take your rest here tonight, and I will give you an answer after hearing what the Lord says; so the chiefs of Moab kept there with Balaam that night.

See, the people who have come out of Egypt are covering all the earth: now, put a curse on this people for me, so that I may be able to make war on them, driving them out of the land.

So Balak sent more chiefs, greater in number and of higher position than the others.

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.

And that night God came to Balaam and said to him, If these men have come for you, go with them: but do only what I say to you.

Then the angel of the Lord took up his position in a narrow road through the vine-gardens, with a wall on this side and on that.

Then the Lord gave the ass the power of talking, and opening her mouth she said to Balaam, What have I done to you that you have given me blows these three times?

And Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have done wrong, for I did not see that you were in the way against me: but now, if it is evil in your eyes, I will go 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.

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.

God is not a man, to say what is false; or the son of man, that his purpose may be changed: what he has said, will he not do? and will he not give effect to the words of his mouth

Then Balak said to Balaam, Come now, I will take you to another place; it may be that God will let you put a curse on them from there.

Now when Balaam saw that it was the Lord's pleasure to give his blessing to Israel, he did not, as at other times, make use of secret arts, but turning his face to the waste land,

Peoples will be in fear before his strength, his arm will be on great nations: his king will be higher than Agag, and his kingdom made great in honour.

Then Balak was full of wrath against Balaam, and angrily waving his hands he said to Balaam, I sent for you so that those who are against me might be cursed, but now, see, three times you have given them a blessing.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Take all the chiefs of the people, hanging them up in the sun before the Lord, so that the wrath of the Lord may be turned from Israel.