and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your murmurings against the Lord. As for us, what are we, that you should murmur against us?"

Moses said, "You will know this when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord."

When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" because they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you for food.

"This is what the Lord has commanded: 'Each person is to gather from it what he can eat, an omer per person according to the number of your people; each one will pick it up for whoever lives in his tent.'"

When they measured with an omer, the one who gathered much had nothing left over, and the one who gathered little lacked nothing; each one had gathered what he could eat.

So they gathered it each morning, each person according to what he could eat, and when the sun got hot, it would melt.

He said to them, "This is what the Lord has said: 'Tomorrow is a time of cessation from work, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Whatever you want to bake, bake today; whatever you want to boil, boil today; whatever is left put aside for yourselves to be kept until morning.'"

Moses said, "This is what the Lord has commanded: 'Fill an omer with it to be kept for generations to come, so that they may see the food I fed you in the desert when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.'"

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, "What will I do with this people? -- a little more and they will stone me!"

When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, "What is this that you are doing for the people? Why are you sitting by yourself, and all the people stand around you from morning until evening?"

Moses' father-in-law said to him, "What you are doing is not good!

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I lifted you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.

"If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman's husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides.

If it is torn in pieces, then he will bring it for evidence, and he will not have to pay for what was torn.

If its owner was with it, he will not have to pay; if it was hired, what was paid for the hire covers it.

for it is his only covering -- it is his garment for his body. What else can he sleep in? And when he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.

But in the seventh year you must let it lie fallow and leave it alone so that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave any animal in the field may eat; you must do likewise with your vineyard and your olive grove.

The foot and a half on the one side and the foot and a half on the other side of what remains in the length of the curtains of the tent will hang over the sides of the tabernacle, on one side and the other side, to cover it.

"Now this is what you are to do for them to consecrate them so that they may minister as my priests. Take a young bull and two rams without blemish;

You are to sanctify the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution, which were waved and lifted up as a contribution from the ram of consecration, from what belongs to Aaron and to his sons.

If any of the meat from the consecration offerings or any of the bread is left over until morning, then you are to burn up what is left over. It must not be eaten, because it is holy.

"Now this is what you are to prepare on the altar every day continually: two lambs a year old.

When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Get up, make us gods that will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him!"

Then the Lord said to Moses: "I have seen this people. Look what a stiff-necked people they are!

Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you, that you have brought on them so great a sin?"

They said to me, 'Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.'

The Levites did what Moses ordered, and that day about three thousand men of the people died.

For the Lord had said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites, 'You are a stiff-necked people. If I went up among you for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments, that I may know what I should do to you.'"

"Obey what I am commanding you this day. I am going to drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded.

Every woman who was skilled spun with her hands and brought what she had spun, blue, purple, or scarlet yarn, or fine linen,

This is what Moses did, according to all the Lord had commanded him -- so he did.

He must do with the rest of the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; this is what he must do with it. So the priest will make atonement on their behalf and they will be forgiven.

"'When a person sins in that he hears a public curse against one who fails to testify and he is a witness (he either saw or knew what had happened) and he does not make it known, then he will bear his punishment for iniquity.

Aaron and his sons are to eat what is left over from it. It must be eaten unleavened in a holy place; they are to eat it in the courtyard of the Meeting Tent.

This is what the Lord commanded to give to them from the Israelites on the day Moses anointed them -- a perpetual allotted portion throughout their generations.

Then Moses said to the congregation: "This is what the Lord has commanded to be done."

What has been done on this day the Lord has commanded to be done to make atonement for you.

You must reside at the entrance of the Meeting Tent day and night for seven days and keep the charge of the Lord so that you will not die, for this is what I have been commanded."

So they took what Moses had commanded to the front of the Meeting Tent and the whole congregation presented them and stood before the Lord.

Then Moses said, "This is what the Lord has commanded you to do so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you."

Moses then said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord spoke: 'Among the ones close to me I will show myself holy, and in the presence of all the people I will be honored.'" So Aaron kept silent.

You must eat it in a holy place because it is your allotted portion and the allotted portion of your sons from the gifts of the Lord, for this is what I have been commanded.

"'Now this is what is unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm on the land: the rat, the mouse, the large lizard of any kind,

It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice and on the following day, but what is left over until the third day must be burned up.

and the one who eats it will bear his punishment for iniquity because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord. That person will be cut off from his people.

If you say, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?'

"'If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold.

If he has not prospered enough to refund a balance to him, then what he sold will belong to the one who bought it until the jubilee year, but it must revert in the jubilee and the original owner may return to his property.

You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new.

If he is too poor to pay the conversion value, he must stand the person before the priest and the priest will establish his conversion value; according to what the man who made the vow can afford, the priest will establish his conversion value.

"'If what is vowed is a kind of animal from which an offering may be presented to the Lord, anything which he gives to the Lord from this kind of animal will be holy.

If what is vowed is an unclean animal from which an offering must not be presented to the Lord, then he must stand the animal before the priest,

The Israelites did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses -- that is what they did.

This is what they are responsible to carry as their entire service in the tent of meeting: the frames of the tabernacle, its crossbars, its posts, its sockets,

According to the word of the Lord they were numbered, by the authority of Moses, each according to his service and according to what he was to carry. Thus were they numbered by him, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

So Moses and Aaron and the entire community of the Israelites did this with the Levites. According to all that the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites, this is what the Israelites did with them.

"This is what pertains to the Levites: At the age of twenty-five years and upward one may begin to join the company in the work of the tent of meeting,

So Moses said to them, "Remain here and I will hear what the Lord will command concerning you."

and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, few or many,

Say to them, 'As I live, says the Lord, I will surely do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing.

According to the number of the days you have investigated this land, forty days -- one day for a year -- you will suffer for your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me.

This is what is to be done for each ox, or each ram, or each of the male lambs or the goats.

They put him in custody, because there was no clear instruction about what should be done to him.

Therefore you and all your company have assembled together against the Lord! And Aaron -- what is he that you murmur against him?"

All the Israelites who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, "What if the earth swallows us too?"

So Moses did as the Lord commanded him -- this is what he did.

And the Lord said to Moses, "Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand. You will do to him what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.

Now therefore, please stay the night here also, that I may know what more the Lord might say to me."

Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?"

The angel of the Lord said to him, "Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? Look, I came out to oppose you because what you are doing is perverse before me.

Then the Lord put a message in Balaam's mouth and said, "Return to Balak, and speak what I tell you."

Then Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but on the contrary you have only blessed them!"

Balaam replied, "Must I not be careful to speak what the Lord has put in my mouth?"

Then the Lord met Balaam and put a message in his mouth and said, "Return to Balak, and speak what I tell you."

When Balaam came to him, he was still standing by his burnt offering, along with the princes of Moab. And Balak said to him, "What has the Lord spoken?"

For there is no spell against Jacob, nor is there any divination against Israel. At this time it must be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'Look at what God has done!'

And now, I am about to go back to my own people. Come now, and I will advise you as to what this people will do to your people in the future."

Moses told the leaders of the tribes concerning the Israelites, "This is what the Lord has commanded:

So we have brought as an offering for the Lord what each man found: gold ornaments, armlets, bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and necklaces, to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord."

So build cities for your descendants and pens for your sheep, but do what you have said you would do."

Then the Gadites and the Reubenites answered, "Your servants will do what the Lord has spoken.

And what I intended to do to them I will do to you."

Then Moses gave a ruling to the Israelites by the word of the Lord: "What the tribe of the Josephites is saying is right.

This is what the Lord has commanded for Zelophehad's daughters: 'Let them marry whomever they think best, only they must marry within the family of their father's tribe.

This is what Moses said to the assembly of Israel in the Transjordanian wastelands, the arid country opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di Zahab

You replied to me that what I had said to you was good.

So all of you approached me and said, "Let's send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there."

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage by describing people who are more numerous and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven itself! Moreover, they said they saw Anakites there."

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

The Lord, however, said to me, "Don't be afraid of him because I have already given him, his whole army, and his land to you. You will do to him exactly what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon."

"O, Lord God, you have begun to show me your greatness and strength. (What god in heaven or earth can rival your works and mighty deeds?)

Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to you.

You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how he eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor.

In fact, what other great nation has a god so near to them like the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this whole law that I am about to share with you today?

When the Lord heard you speaking to me, he said to me, "I have heard what these people have said to you -- they have spoken well.

Be careful, therefore, to do exactly what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn right or left!

When your children ask you later on, "What are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?"

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, cut down their sacred Asherah poles, and burn up their idols.