He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

along with her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom (because Moses had said, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land”)

and the other Eliezer (because he had said, “The God of my father was my helper and delivered me from Pharaoh’s sword”).

Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all gods, because He did wonders when the Egyptians acted arrogantly against Israel.”

Moses replied to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God.

“You will certainly wear out both yourself and these people who are with you, because the task is too heavy for you. You can’t do it alone.

Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke because the Lord came down on it in fire. Its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently.

Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses His name.

If she is displeasing to her master, who chose her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners because he has acted treacherously toward her.

However, if the slave can stand up after a day or two, the owner should not be punished because he is his owner’s property.

But if this happens after sunrise, there is guilt of bloodshed. A thief must make full restitution. If he is unable, he is to be sold because of his theft.

For it is his only covering; it is the clothing for his body. What will he sleep in? And if he cries out to Me, I will listen because I am compassionate.

Stay far away from a false accusation. Do not kill the innocent and the just, because I will not justify the guilty.

You must not oppress a foreign resident; you yourselves know how it feels to be a foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, because you came out of Egypt in that month. No one is to appear before Me empty-handed.

Be attentive to him and listen to his voice. Do not defy him, because he will not forgive your acts of rebellion, for My name is in him.

If any of the meat of ordination or any of the bread is left until morning, burn up what is left over. It must not be eaten because it is holy.

When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!”

They said to me, ‘Make us a god who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’

Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people; otherwise, I might destroy you on the way.”

You are never to bow down to another god because Yahweh, being jealous by nature, is a jealous God.

Moses was unable to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud rested on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

You must not go outside the entrance to the tent of meeting for seven days, until the time your days of ordination are completed, because it will take seven days to ordain you.

Moses spoke to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar: “Take the grain offering that is left over from the fire offerings to the Lord, and eat it prepared without yeast beside the altar, because it is especially holy.

You must eat it in a holy place because it is your portion and your sons’ from the fire offerings to the Lord, for this is what I was commanded.

But you and your sons and your daughters may eat the breast of the presentation offering and the thigh of the contribution in any ceremonially clean place, because these portions have been assigned to you and your children from the Israelites’ fellowship sacrifices.

“You are to detest these birds. They must not be eaten because they are detestable:

the eagle, the bearded vulture,
the black vulture,

For I am Yahweh your God, so you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any swarming creature that crawls on the ground.

For I am Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy.

“But when the priest comes and examines it, if the contamination has not spread in the house after it was replastered, he is to pronounce the house clean because the contamination has disappeared.

This is uncleanness of his discharge: Whether his body secretes the discharge or retains it, he is unclean. All the days that his body secretes or retains anything because of his discharge, he is unclean.

The priest is to sacrifice them, one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord because of his discharge.

“When a woman has a discharge, and it consists of blood from her body, she will be unclean because of her menstruation for seven days. Everyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.

The priest is to sacrifice one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her before the Lord because of her unclean discharge.

The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he may not come whenever he wants into the holy place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.

He will purify the most holy place in this way for all their sins because of the Israelites’ impurities and rebellious acts. He will do the same for the tent of meeting that remains among them, because it is surrounded by their impurities.

This is to be a permanent statute for you, to make atonement for the Israelites once a year because of all their sins.” And all this was done as the Lord commanded Moses.

Since the life of every creature is its blood, I have told the Israelites: You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it must be cut off.

You are not to have sexual intercourse with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, because it will shame your family.

“Speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.

“You must not harbor hatred against your brother. Rebuke your neighbor directly, and you will not incur guilt because of him.

“If a man has sexual intercourse with a woman who is a slave designated for another man, but she has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be punishment. They are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.

I will turn against that man and cut him off from his people, because he gave his offspring to Molech, defiling My sanctuary and profaning My holy name.

You are to be holy to Me because I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be Mine.

They are to be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they present the fire offerings to Yahweh, the food of their God, and they must be holy.

You are to consider him holy since he presents the food of your God. He will be holy to you because I, Yahweh who sets you apart, am holy.

But because he has a defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar. He is not to desecrate My sanctuaries, for I am Yahweh who sets them apart.”

They must keep My instruction, or they will be guilty and die because they profane it; I am Yahweh who sets them apart.

You are not to present anything that has a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf.

Neither you nor a foreigner are to present food to your God from any of these animals. They will not be accepted for you because they are deformed and have a defect.”

You are to have the same law for the foreign resident and the native, because I am Yahweh your God.”

It is to be holy to you because it is the Jubilee; you may only eat its produce directly from the field.

You are to increase its price in proportion to a greater amount of years, and decrease its price in proportion to a lesser amount of years, because what he is selling to you is a number of harvests.

“The land is not to be permanently sold because it is Mine, and you are only foreigners and temporary residents on My land.

Whatever property one of the Levites can redeem—a house sold in a city they possess—must be released at the Jubilee, because the houses in the Levitical cities are their possession among the Israelites.

They are not to be sold as slaves, because they are My slaves that I brought out of the land of Egypt.

then I will do this to you: I will bring terror on you—wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.

Those who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away because of their sin; they will also waste away because of their fathers’ sins along with theirs.

For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbaths by lying desolate without the people, while they pay the penalty for their sin, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes.

“But no one can consecrate a firstborn of the livestock, whether an animal from the herd or flock, to the Lord, because a firstborn already belongs to the Lord.

because every firstborn belongs to Me. At the time I struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated every firstborn in Israel to Myself, both man and animal. They are Mine; I am Yahweh.”

“Command the Israelites to send away anyone from the camp who is afflicted with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, or anyone who is defiled because of a corpse.

and if a feeling of jealousy comes over the husband and he becomes jealous because of his wife who has defiled herself—or if a feeling of jealousy comes over him and he becomes jealous of her though she has not defiled herself—

then the man is to bring his wife to the priest. He is also to bring an offering for her of two quarts of barley flour. He is not to pour oil over it or put frankincense on it because it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering for remembrance that brings sin to mind.

He is not to defile himself for his father or mother, or his brother or sister, when they die, because the hair consecrated to his God is on his head.

The priest is to offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to make atonement on behalf of the Nazirite, since he sinned because of the corpse. On that day he must consecrate his head again.

He is to rededicate his time of consecration to the Lord and to bring a year-old male lamb as a restitution offering. But do not count the previous period, because his consecrated hair became defiled.

But there were some men who were unclean because of a human corpse, so they could not observe the Passover on that day. These men came before Moses and Aaron the same day

and said to him, “We are unclean because of a human corpse. Why should we be excluded from presenting the Lord’s offering at its appointed time with the other Israelites?”

“Tell the Israelites: When any one of you or your descendants is unclean because of a corpse or is on a distant journey, he may still observe the Passover to the Lord.

“But the man who is ceremonially clean, is not on a journey, and yet fails to observe the Passover is to be cut off from his people, because he did not present the Lord’s offering at its appointed time. That man will bear the consequences of his sin.

So that place was named Taberah, because the Lord’s fire had blazed among them.

“Tell the people: Purify yourselves in readiness for tomorrow, and you will eat meat because you cried before the Lord: ‘Who will feed us meat? We really had it good in Egypt.’ The Lord will give you meat and you will eat.

but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes nauseating to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and cried to Him: ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”

So they named that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved the meat.

Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he married (for he had married a Cushite woman).

That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut there.

Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!”

But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!”

Your corpses will fall in this wilderness—all of you who were registered in the census, the entire number of you 20 years old or more—because you have complained about Me.

Don’t go, because the Lord is not among you and you will be defeated by your enemies.

He will certainly be cut off, because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken His command; his guilt remains on him.”

They placed him in custody because it had not been decided what should be done to him.

He warned the community, “Get away now from the tents of these wicked men. Don’t touch anything that belongs to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins.”

At their cries, all the people of Israel who were around them fled because they thought, “The earth may swallow us too!”

“Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to remove the firepans from the burning debris, because they are holy, and scatter the fire far away.

Then Moses told Aaron, “Take your firepan, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the community and make atonement for them, because wrath has come from the Lord; the plague has begun.”

But those who died from the plague numbered 14,700, in addition to those who died because of the Korah incident.

Write Aaron’s name on Levi’s staff, because there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral house.

You will not incur guilt because of it once you have presented the best part of it, but you must not defile the Israelites’ holy offerings, so that you will not die.”

Anyone who touches a body of a person who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That person will be cut off from Israel. He remains unclean because the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, and his uncleanness is still on him.

But a person who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person will be cut off from the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me to show My holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land I have given them.”

“Aaron will be gathered to his people; he will not enter the land I have given the Israelites, because you both rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.

Then they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom, but the people became impatient because of the journey.

They set out from there and camped on the other side of the Arnon River, in the wilderness that extends from the Amorite border, because the Arnon was the Moabite border between Moab and the Amorites.

Israel struck him with the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only up to the Ammonite border, because it was fortified.

Moab was terrified of the people because they were numerous, and Moab dreaded the Israelites.

Please come and put a curse on these people for me because they are more powerful than I am. I may be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that those you bless are blessed and those you curse are cursed.”

So Balaam got up the next morning and said to Balak’s officials, “Go back to your land, because the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”