And the Lord said to Moses in the waste land of Sinai, in the Tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt,

And they got together all the people on the first day of the second month; and everyone made clear his family and his father's house, by the number of the names, from twenty years old and over.

As the Lord had given orders to Moses, so they were numbered by him in the waste place of Sinai.

These are they who were numbered by Moses and Aaron and by the twelve chiefs of Israel, one from every tribe.

But to them you are to give the care of the Tent of meeting with its vessels and everything in it: they are to take up the Tent, and be responsible for everything to do with it, and put up their tents round it.

And when the Tent of meeting goes forward, the Levites are to take it down; and when it is to be put up, they are to do it: any strange person who comes near it is to be put to death.

The number of all the armies of Judah was a hundred and eighty-six thousand, four hundred. They go forward first.

The number of all the armies of Reuben together came to a hundred and fifty-one thousand, four hundred and fifty. They go forward second.

Then the Tent of meeting is to go forward, with the tents of the Levites, in the middle of the armies; in the same order as their tents are placed, they are to go forward, every man under his flag.

The number of all the armies of Ephraim was a hundred and eight thousand, one hundred. They go forward third.

The number of all the armies in the tents of Dan was a hundred and fifty-seven thousand, six hundred. They will go forward last, by their flags.

So the children of Israel did as the Lord said to Moses, so they put up their tents by their flags, and they went forward in the same order, by their families, and by their fathers' houses.

And Nadab and Abihu were put to death before the Lord when they made an offering of strange fire before the Lord, in the waste land of Sinai, and they had no children: and Eleazar and Ithamar did the work of priests before Aaron their father.

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;

And they will have the care of all the vessels of the Tent of meeting, and will do for the children of Israel all the necessary 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.

For all the first sons are mine; on the day when I put to death all the first sons in the land of Egypt, I took for myself every first male birth of man and beast. They are mine; I am the Lord.

In their care are the ark, and the table, and the lights, and the altars, and all the vessels used in the holy place, and the veil, and all they are used for.

And in their care are to be all the boards of the Tent, with their rods and pillars and bases, and all the instruments, and all they are used for,

And on the table of the holy bread they are to put a blue cloth, and on it all the vessels, the spoons and the basins and the cups; and the holy bread with them;

And over them they are to put a red cloth, covering it with a leather cover, and putting its rods in their places.

And they are to take a blue cloth, covering with it the light-support with its lights and its instruments and its trays and all the oil vessels which are used for it:

All these they are to put in a leather cover, and put it on the frame.

On the gold altar they are to put a blue cloth, covering it with a leather cover; and they are to put its rods in their places.

All the vessels which are used in the holy place they are to put in a blue cloth, covering them with a leather cover, and put them on the frame.

And they are to take away the burned waste from the altar, and put a purple cloth on it;

Placing on the cloth all its vessels, the fire-baskets, the meat-hooks, the spades, and the basins; all the vessels of the altar; they are to put a leather cover over all these, and put its rods in their places.

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;

But they themselves are not to go in to see the holy place, even for a minute, for fear of death.

This is to be the work of the Gershonites, the things they are to do and take up.

They are to take up the curtains of the House, and the Tent of meeting with its cover and the leather cover over it, and the hangings for the door of the Tent of meeting;

And the hangings for the open space round the House and the altar, and the curtain for its doorway, with the cords and all the things used for them; whatever is necessary for these, they are to do.

From the mouth of Aaron and his sons the Gershonites will have word about all the things they are to do and take up; you are to give them their orders.

This is the work of the family of the Gershonites in the Tent of meeting, and they will be under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.

And the pillars of the open space outside it, with their bases and their nails and cords and all the instruments used, and everything which has to be done there; all the instruments for which they are responsible are to be numbered by name.

This is the number of those of the Kohathites who did the work in the Tent of meeting, as they were numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord.

This is the number of the sons of Gershon who did the work in the Tent of meeting, as they were numbered by Moses and Aaron at the order of the Lord.

At the order of the Lord they were numbered by Moses, every one in relation to his work and to his part in the transport; so they were numbered by Moses at the order of the Lord.

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

Let them say openly what they have done; and make payment for the wrong done, with the addition of a fifth part, and give it to him to whom the wrong was done.

So they will put my name on the children of Israel, and I will give them my blessing.

And they came with their offerings before the Lord, six covered carts and twelve oxen; a cart for every two of the chiefs, and for every one an ox.

But to the sons of Kohath he gave nothing; because they had the care of the holy place, taking it about on their backs.

And the chiefs gave an offering for the altar on the day when the holy oil was put on it; they made their offering before the altar.

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.

For they have been given to me from among the children of Israel; in place of every mother's first son, the first to come to birth in Israel, I have taken them for myself.

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.

But after they are fifty years old, they are to give up their work and do no more;

And the Lord said to Moses, in the waste land of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt,

So they kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, in the waste land of Sinai: as the Lord gave orders to Moses, so the children of Israel did.

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:

In the second month, on the fourteenth day, in the evening, they are to keep it, taking it with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants;

Nothing of it is to be kept till the morning, and no bone of it is to be broken: they are to keep it by the rules of the Passover.

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.

And sometimes the cloud was there only from evening to morning; and when the cloud was taken up in the morning they went on their journey again: or if it was resting there by day and by night, whenever the cloud was taken up they went forward.

Or if the cloud came to rest on the House for two days or a month or a year without moving, the children of Israel went on waiting there and did not go on; but whenever it was taken up they went forward on their journey.

At the word of the Lord they put up their tents, and at the word of the Lord they went forward on their journey: they kept the orders of the Lord as he gave them by Moses.

When they are sounded, all the people are to come together to you at the door of the Tent of meeting.

And on days of joy and on your regular feasts and on the first day of every month, let the horns be sounded over your burned offerings and your peace-offerings; and they will put the Lord in mind of you: I am the Lord your God.

They went forward for the first time on their journey as the Lord had given orders by the hand of Moses.

This was the order in which the children of Israel were journeying by armies; so they went forward.

So they went forward three days' journey from the mountain of the Lord; and the ark of the Lord's agreement went three days' journey before them, looking for a resting-place for them;

And by day the cloud of the Lord went over them, when they went forward from the place where they had put up their tents.

The people went about taking it up from the earth, crushing it between stones or hammering it to powder, and boiling it in pots, and they made cakes of it: its taste was like the taste of cakes cooked with oil.

Where am I to get flesh to give to all this people? For they are weeping to me and saying, Give us flesh for our food.

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.

But two men were still in the tent-circle one of them named Eldad and the other Medad: and the spirit came to rest on them; they were among those who had been sent for, but they had not gone out to the Tent: and the prophet's power came on them in the tent-circle.

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.

From Kibroth-hattaavah the people went on to Hazeroth; and there they put up their tents.

And they said, Have the words of the Lord been given to Moses only? have they not come to us? And the Lord took note of it.

And what sort of land they are living in, if it is good or bad; and what their living-places are, tent-circles or walled towns;

So they went up and got a view of the land, from the waste land of Zin to Rehob, on the way to Hamath.

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.)

And they came to the valley of Eshcol, and cutting down a vine-branch with its grapes, two of them took it on a rod between them; and they took some pomegranates and figs.

At the end of forty days they came back from viewing the land.

And they came back to Moses and Aaron and all the children of Israel, to Kadesh in the waste land of Paran; and gave an account to them and to all the people and let them see the produce of the land.

And they said, We came to the land where you sent us, and truly it is flowing with milk and honey: and here is some of the produce of it.

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.

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

And they said to one another, Let us make a captain over us, and go back to Egypt.

Only, do not go against the Lord or go in fear of the people of the land, for they will be our food; their strength has been taken from them and the Lord is with us: have no fear of them.

But all the people said they were to be stoned. Then the glory of the Lord was seen in the Tent of meeting, before the eyes of all the children of Israel.

And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people have no respect for me? how long will they be without faith, in the face of all the signs I have done among them?

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.

They will not see the land about which I made an oath to their fathers; not one of these by whom I have not been honoured will see it.

How long am I to put up with this evil people and their outcries against me? The words which they say against me have come to my ears.

And your little ones, whom you said would come into strange hands, I will take in, and they will see the land which you would not have.

And the men whom Moses sent to see the land, and who, by the bad account they gave of the land, were the cause of the outcry the people made against Moses,

And early in the morning they got up and went to the top of the mountain, saying, We are here and we will go up to the place which the Lord said he would give us: for we have done wrong.

But they gave no attention to his words and went to the top of the mountain, though Moses and the ark of the Lord's agreement did not go out of the tent-circle.

So the priest will make the people free from sin, and they will have forgiveness; for it was an error, and they have given their offering made by fire to the Lord, and their sin-offering before the Lord, on account of their error:

Now while the children of Israel were in the waste land, they saw a man who was getting sticks on the Sabbath day.