If a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to bind himself with a pledge [of abstinence], he shall not break (violate, profane) his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

But if her father disapproves of her [making her vow] on the day that he hears about it, none of her vows or her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will forgive her because her father has disapproved of her [making the vow].

“But if she marries while under her vows or if she has bound herself by a rash statement,

But if her husband disapproves of her [making her vow or pledge] on the day that he hears of it, then he shall annul her vow which she is under and the rash statement of her lips by which she bound herself; and the Lord will forgive her.

“But the vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, everything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.

However, if she vowed in her husband’s house or bound herself by a pledge with an oath,

and her husband heard it, but said nothing to her and did not disapprove of her [making the vow], then all her vows and every pledge by which she bound herself shall stand.

But if her husband absolutely annuls them on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeds from her lips concerning her vows or concerning her pledge shall not stand. Her husband has annulled them, and the Lord will forgive her.

“Every vow and every binding oath to humble herself, her husband may confirm it or her husband may annul it.

But if her husband says nothing to her [concerning the matter] from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all her pledges which are on her. He has confirmed them because he said nothing to her on the day he heard them.

These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter while she is a youth in her father’s house.

“Take vengeance for the Israelites on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people [in death].”

Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for war, so that they may go against Midian to execute the Lord’s vengeance on Midian [for seducing Israel to participate in idolatry].

A thousand [fighting men] from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel you shall send to the war.”

So out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe were selected, twelve thousand armed for war.

Moses sent them, a thousand from each tribe, to the war, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to war with them, and the sacred vessels [of the sanctuary] and the trumpets to blow the alarm in his hand.

Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp.

But Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, who served in the war.

Camp outside the camp for seven days; whoever has killed any person and whoever has touched any dead body, purify yourselves and your captives, on the third day and on the seventh day.

Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone to battle, “This is the statute of the law which the Lord has commanded Moses:

And you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you may come into the camp.”

The plunder that remained from the spoil of war which the warriors had taken, was 675,000 sheep,

and 32,000 persons in all, of the [Midianite] women who were virgins.

The half share, the portion of those who went to war, was 337,500 sheep in number,

the cattle were 36,000, from which the Lord’s levy was 72;

the donkeys were 30,500, from which the Lord’s levy was 61;

the persons were 16,000, from whom the Lord’s levy was 32 persons.

Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the commanders of thousands and hundreds, approached Moses,

and they said to him, “Your servants have counted the warriors under our command, and not one man of us is missing.

For the men of war had taken plunder, every man for himself.

the land which the Lord conquered before the congregation of Israel, is a land [suitable] for livestock, and your servants have [very large herds of] livestock.”

They said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan [River].”

But Moses said to the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?

This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land!

Now look, you [the tribes of Reuben and Gad] have risen up in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to add still more to the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel.

But the people of Reuben and Gad approached Moses and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our flocks and [walled] cities for our children,

but we will be armed and ready to go to war before the [other tribes of the] Israelites, until we have brought them to their place, while our children live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

We will not return to our homes until every one of the [other] sons of Israel has taken possession of his inheritance.

For we will not inherit with them on the west side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan [River] toward the east.”

Moses replied, “If you will do as you say, if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for war,

and the land [west of the Jordan] is subdued before the Lord, then afterward you shall return and be blameless [in this matter] before the Lord and before Israel, and this land [east of the Jordan] shall be yours as a possession before the Lord.

But if you do not do this, behold, you will have sinned against the Lord; and be sure that your sin will find you out.

Build yourselves cities for your children, and folds for your sheep, and do that of which you have spoken.”

Then the descendants of Gad and of Reuben said to Moses, “Your servants will do just as my lord commands.

Our children, our wives, our livestock, and all our cattle shall be there in the cities of Gilead.

But your servants will cross over, every man armed for war, before the Lord to the battle, just as my lord says.”

The sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben answered, “As the Lord has said to your servants, so will we do.

We will cross over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, so that the possession of our inheritance on [the east] side of the Jordan may be ours.”

Nebo, and Baal-meon (their names being changed) and Sibmah; and they gave other names to the cities which they built.

The sons of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and took it, and drove out the Amorites who were in it.

These are the stages of the journeys of the Israelites, by which they came out of the land of Egypt by their [tribal] armies, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.

Moses recorded their points of departure, as the Lord commanded, stage by stage; and these are their journeys according to their points of departure:

while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn whom the Lord had struck down among them. Upon their gods the Lord also executed judgments.

They moved out from Marah and came to Elim; in Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there.

They moved out from Alush and camped at Rephidim; now it was there that the people had no water to drink.

Aaron the priest went up on Mount Hor at the command of the Lord, and died there in the fortieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, on the first day of the fifth month.

You shall inherit the land by lot according to your families; to the large tribe you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the small tribe you shall give a smaller inheritance. Wherever the lot falls to any man, that shall be [the location of] his [inheritance]. According to the tribes of your fathers (ancestors) you shall inherit.

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and like thorns in your sides, and they will attack you in the land in which you live.

your southern region shall be from the Wilderness of Zin along the side of Edom, and your southern boundary from the end of the Salt (Dead) Sea eastward.

Your boundary shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and continue on to Zin, and its limit shall be south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it shall go on to Hazar-addar and pass on to Azmon.

‘And this shall be your north border: from the Great [Mediterranean] Sea mark out your boundary line to Mount Hor;

from Mount Hor you shall mark out your boundary to the entrance of Hamath, and the limit of the border shall be at Zedad;

‘You shall mark out your eastern boundary from Hazar-enan to Shepham;

and the [eastern] boundary shall go down to the Jordan [River], and its limit shall be at the Salt (Dead) Sea. This shall be your land according to its boundaries all around.’”

“These are the names of the men who shall divide the land among you as an inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun.

You shall take one leader from every tribe to divide the land for the inheritance.

These are the names of the men: From the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;

These are the [twelve] men whom the Lord commanded [to work with Joshua and Eleazar] to divide the inheritance to the sons of Israel in the land of Canaan.

The cities which you are to provide shall be your six cities of refuge.

Or if he struck his victim down [intentionally] with a wooden object in hand, which may cause a person to die, and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall certainly be put to death.

But if he pushed his victim out of hatred or threw something at him with malicious intent, and he died,

or if, in enmity, he struck the victim down with his hand, and he died, the one that struck the victim shall certainly be put to death; he is a murderer. The blood avenger shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.

‘But if he pushed the victim suddenly, not in enmity, or threw anything at him without malicious intent,

or without seeing him hit him [accidentally] with a stone object that could kill him, and he died, and [the offender] was not his enemy nor intending to harm him,

‘These things shall be a statute for you throughout your generations wherever you may be.

and they said, “The Lord commanded my lord [Moses] to give the land by lot to the sons of Israel as an inheritance, and my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters.

But if the daughters marry any of the men from any of the other tribes of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken away from that of our fathers (tribal ancestors) and will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they belong; so it will be taken away from our allotted inheritance.

When the [year of] Jubilee of the Israelites comes, then their inheritance will be added [permanently] to that of the tribe to which they belong; so their inheritance will be taken away from that of the tribe of our fathers (tribal ancestors).”

For Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father’s brothers.

These are the commandments and the ordinances (judgments) which the Lord commanded through Moses to the sons of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan [across from] Jericho.

These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel [while they were still] beyond [that is, on the east side of] the Jordan [River] in the wilderness [across from Jerusalem], in the Arabah [the long, deep valley running north and south from the eastern arm of the Red Sea to beyond the Dead Sea] opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab (place of gold).

In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them,

“The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.

Turn and resume your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland (the Shephelah), in the Negev (South country) and on the coast of the [Mediterranean] Sea, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

Look, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord swore (solemnly promised) to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.’

The Lord your God has multiplied you, and look, today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven.

May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, just as He has promised you!

How can I alone bear the weight and pressure and burden of you and your strife (contention) and complaining?

Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as heads (leaders) over you.’

So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and made them leaders over you, commanders of thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and officers (administrators) for your tribes.

“Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the matters between your brothers [your fellow countrymen], and judge righteously and fairly between a man and his brother, or the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is with him.

“Then we set out from Horeb (Sinai), and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the Lord our God is about to give us.

Behold, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they reported back to us, and said, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.’

“Yet you were not willing to go up [to take possession of it], but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

You murmured and were ill-tempered (discontented) in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us He has brought us from the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us.

Where can we go up? Our brothers (spies) have made our hearts melt [in fear] and demoralized us by saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large, and fortified [all the way up] to heaven. And besides, we saw the [giant-like] sons of the Anakim there.”’

The Lord your God who goes before you will fight for you Himself, just as He did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes,

and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried and protected you, just as a man carries his son, all along the way which you traveled until you arrived at this place.’