Now this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold; from its base to its flowers it was hammered work; according to the pattern which the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.

Thus did Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the sons of Israel to the Levites; according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so the sons of Israel did to them.

Then after that the Levites went in to perform their service in the tent of meeting before Aaron and before his sons; just as the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them.

Thus the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,

They observed the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel did.

The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?

But two men had remained in the camp; the name of one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them (now they were among those who had been registered, but had not gone out to the tent), and they prophesied in the camp.

So the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had been greedy.

Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman);

Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward,

But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous.

But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.”

When they had gone up into the Negev, they came to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”

So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.

All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!

Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes;

But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.

and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him.

So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers which the men who were burned had offered, and they hammered them out as a plating for the altar,

as a reminder to the sons of Israel that no layman who is not of the descendants of Aaron should come near to burn incense before the Lord; so that he will not become like Korah and his company—just as the Lord had spoken to him through Moses.

It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

Then Aaron took it as Moses had spoken, and ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold, the plague had begun among the people. So he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.

Then Aaron returned to Moses at the doorway of the tent of meeting, for the plague had been checked.

Now on the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.

Thus Moses did; just as the Lord had commanded him, so he did.

The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord!

So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, just as He had commanded him;

So Moses did just as the Lord had commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

After Moses had stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar, Aaron died there on the mountain top. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

When all the congregation saw that Aaron had died, all the house of Israel wept for Aaron thirty days.

For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

Now Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.

Then Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a mockery of me! If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now.”

But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live.”

Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.

Balak did just as Balaam had said, and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.

Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not tell your messengers whom you had sent to me, saying,

Now Zelophehad the son of Hepher had no sons, but only daughters; and the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah.

For the Lord had said of them, “They shall surely die in the wilderness.” And not a man was left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

“Our father died in the wilderness, yet he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but he died in his own sin, and he had no sons.

Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers.”

Then he laid his hands on him and commissioned him, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.

Moses spoke to the sons of Israel in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded Moses.

But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will forgive her because her father had forbidden her.

So they made war against Midian, just as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed every male.

Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.

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:

Moses and Eleazar the priest did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Now the booty that remained from the spoil which the men of war had plundered was 675,000 sheep,

and of human beings, of the women who had not known man intimately, all the persons were 32,000.

Moses gave the levy which was the Lord’s offering to Eleazar the priest, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

As for the sons of Israel’s half, which Moses separated from the men who had gone to war—

and from the sons of Israel’s half, Moses took one drawn out of every fifty, both of man and of animals, and gave them to the Levites, who kept charge of the tabernacle of the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

The men of war had taken booty, every man for himself.

Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had an exceedingly large number of livestock. So when they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, that it was indeed a place suitable for livestock,

For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the sons of Israel so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them.

So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the entire generation of those who had done evil in the sight of the Lord was destroyed.

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

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

Then Aaron the priest went up to Mount Hor at the command of the Lord, and died there in the fortieth year after the sons of Israel had come from the land of Egypt, on the first day in the fifth month.

Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, so the daughters of Zelophehad did:

In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel, according to all that the Lord had commanded him to give to them,

after he had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei.

“Then we set out from Horeb, 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 had commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.

“So it came about when all the men of war had finally perished from among the people,

We took only the animals as our booty and the spoil of the cities which we had captured.

Only you did not go near to the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the Lord our God had commanded us.

Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!

He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.’

When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.

The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.

And I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God. You had made for yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.

I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.

I took your sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that came down from the mountain.

“So I fell down before the Lord the forty days and nights, which I did because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

Otherwise the land from which You brought us may say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He had promised them and because He hated them He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.”

He wrote on the tablets, like the former writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me.

Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer in the heat of his anger, and overtake him, because the way is long, and take his life, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated him previously.

then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb.

moreover, you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which they had with them);

They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they have not known and whom He had not allotted to them.

Had I not feared the provocation by the enemy,
That their adversaries would misjudge,
That they would say, “Our hand is triumphant,
And the Lord has not done all this.”’

“How could one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Unless their Rock had sold them,
And the Lord had given them up?

When Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel,

Now Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.

But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof.

So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate.

They departed and came to the hill country, and remained there for three days until the pursuers returned. Now the pursuers had sought them all along the road, but had not found them.

Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they related to him all that had happened to them.

And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground, until all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.

Now when all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying,

So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe;

For the priests who carried the ark were standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was completed that the Lord had commanded Joshua to speak to the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. And the people hurried and crossed;

and when all the people had finished crossing, the ark of the Lord and the priests crossed before the people.