It shall be that the rod of the man whom I choose will bud, and I will no longer hear the constant grumblings of the Israelites, who are grumbling against you.”

Moses brought out all the rods from the presence of Lord to all the Israelites; and they looked, and each man took his rod.

Behold, I Myself have taken your fellow Levites from among the sons of Israel; they are a gift to you, given (dedicated) to the Lord, to do the service for the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle).

This shall be yours of the most holy things, [reserved] from the fire: every offering of the people, every grain offering and sin offering and guilt offering, which they shall render (give) to Me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons.

And their redemption price, from a month old you shall redeem, according to your valuation, for the [fixed] price of five shekels in silver, in accordance with the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

“Moreover, you shall speak to the Levites and say to them, ‘When you take from the Israelites the tithe which I have given to you from them as your inheritance, then you shall present an offering from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe [paid by the people].

Likewise you shall also present an offering to the Lord from all your tithes, which you receive from the Israelites; and from it you shall give the Lord’s offering to Aaron the priest.

Therefore you shall say to them, ‘When you have offered the best from it, then the rest shall be credited to the Levites as the product of the threshing floor, and as the product of the wine vat.

Whoever touches a corpse, the body of anyone who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from Israel [that is, excluded from the atonement made for them]. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

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

Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) and fell on their faces [before the Lord in prayer]. Then the glory and brilliance of the Lord appeared to them;

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

Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel, ‘You know all the hardship that has come upon us [as a nation];

Thus [the king of] Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him.

Now when they set out from Kadesh, the Israelites, the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

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

Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the [branch of the] Red Sea [called the Gulf of Aqabah], to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient, because [of the challenges] of the journey.

So the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord, so that He will remove the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

They journeyed on from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness facing Moab, toward the sunrise.

From there they set out and camped in the Wadi Zered.

From there they journeyed on and camped on the other side of [the river] Arnon, which is in the wilderness that extends from the boundary of the Amorites; for [the river] Arnon is the boundary of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

From there the Israelites went on to Beer, that is the well where the Lord said to Moses, “Gather the people together and I will give them water.”

The well which the leaders dug,
Which the nobles of the people hollowed out
With the scepter and with their staffs.”

And from the wilderness Israel journeyed to Mattanah,

and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the field of Moab, to the top of Pisgah which looks down on the wasteland.

Then Israel struck the king of the Amorites with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the Ammonites, for the boundary of the Ammonites was strong.

“For fire has gone out of Heshbon,
A flame from the city of Sihon;
It devoured Ar of Moab
And the lords of the heights of the Arnon.

So he sent messengers to Balaam [a famous prophet-diviner] the son of Beor at Pethor, which is by the [Euphrates] River, in the land of the descendants of his people, to call for him, saying, “There is a people who have come out of Egypt; behold, they cover the surface of the land, and they are living opposite me.

They came to Balaam, and said to him, “Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, ‘I beg you, let nothing hinder you from coming to me.

The donkey saw Me and turned away from Me these three times. If she had not turned away from Me, I would have certainly killed you now, and let her live.”

Then it came about in the morning that Balak took Balaam and brought him up to the high places of Baal; from there he saw a portion of the Israelites.

Balaam took up his [first] discourse (oracle) and said:

“Balak, the king of Moab, has brought me from Aram (Syria),
from the mountains of the east, [saying,]
‘Come, curse [the descendants of] Jacob for me;
And come, [violently] denounce Israel.’

“For from the top of the rocks I see Israel,
And from the hills I look at him.
Behold, the people [of Israel] shall dwell alone
And will not be reckoned among the nations.

Balak said to him, “Come with me, I implore you, to another place from where you can see them, although you will see only the nearest and not all of them; and curse them for me from there.”

Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come; I will take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there.”

Therefore now flee to your place! I had intended to honor you greatly, but behold, the Lord has held you back from honor.”

“One from [the descendants of] Jacob shall have dominion
And will destroy the remnant from the city.”

“But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim,
And shall afflict Asshur (Assyria) and Eber;
So they (the victors) also will come to destruction.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people [who have committed sin with the Moabites], and execute them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.”

When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the congregation and took a spear in his hand,

and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and pierced both of them through the body, the man of Israel and the woman. Then the plague on the Israelites stopped.

“Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the Israelites because he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the Israelites in My jealousy.

“Take a census of all the [males in the] congregation of the sons of Israel from twenty years old and upward, by their fathers’ households, all in Israel who are able to go to war.”

“A census of the people shall be taken from twenty years old and upward, just as the Lord has commanded Moses.”

Now the Israelites who came out of the land of Egypt were:

The sons of Eliab: Nemuel and Dathan and Abiram. These are the Dathan and Abiram who were called by the congregation, who contended against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah, when they contended against the Lord,

Those numbered of the Levites were 23,000, every male from a month old and upward; for they were not numbered among the sons of Israel, since no inheritance [of land] was given to them among the Israelites.

Then the [five] daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, from the tribes of Manasseh [who was] the son of Joseph, approached [with a request]. These are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

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

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.

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.

Levy a tax for the Lord from the warriors who went to battle, one in five hundred of the persons, the oxen, the donkeys, and the flocks.

Take this tribute from the warriors’ half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord.

From the Israelites’ half [of the spoil] you shall take one out of every fifty of the persons, the oxen, the donkeys, the flocks, and of all the livestock, and give them to the Levites who are in charge of the tabernacle of the Lord.”

As for the Israelites’ half, which Moses separated from that of the warriors—

Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from them, all the handmade articles.

All the gold of the offering which they presented to the Lord from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds was 16,750 shekels.

So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) as a memorial for the sons of Israel before the Lord.

Now why are you discouraging the hearts of the Israelites from crossing over into the land which the Lord has given them?

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

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

‘None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not followed Me completely,

For if you turn back from following Him [completely], He will once again leave them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all these people.”

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

They set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the day after the Passover the Israelites moved out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians,

Then the Israelites moved out from Rameses [where they had all joined together], and camped in Succoth.

They moved out from Succoth and camped in Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness.

They moved out from Etham and turned back to Pi-hahiroth, east of Baal-zephon, and they camped before Migdol.

They moved out from before Pi-hahiroth and passed through the midst of the [Red] Sea into the wilderness; and they went a three days’ journey in the Wilderness of Etham and camped at Marah.

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 Elim and camped by the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds).

They moved out from the Red Sea and camped in the Wilderness of Sin.

They moved out from the Wilderness of Sin and camped at Dophkah.

They moved out from Dophkah and camped at Alush.

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

They moved out from Rephidim and camped in the Wilderness of Sinai [where they remained for about a year].

They moved out from the Wilderness of Sinai and camped at Kibroth-hattaavah.

They moved out from Kibroth-hattaavah and camped at Hazeroth.

They moved out from Hazeroth and camped at Rithmah [near Kadesh, the place from which the twelve spies were sent to spy out the land of Canaan].

They moved out from Rithmah and camped at Rimmon-perez.

They moved out from Rimmon-perez and camped at Libnah.

They moved out from Libnah and camped at Rissah.

They moved out from Rissah and camped at Kehelathah.

They moved out from Kehelathah and camped at Mount Shepher.

They moved out from Mount Shepher and camped at Haradah.

They moved out from Haradah and camped at Makheloth.

They moved out from Makheloth and camped at Tahath.

They moved out from Tahath and camped at Terah.

They moved out from Terah and camped at Mithkah.

They moved out from Mithkah and camped at Hashmonah.

They moved out from Hashmonah and camped at Moseroth.

They moved out from Moseroth and camped at Bene-jaakan.

They moved out from Bene-jaakan and camped at Hor-haggidgad.

They moved out from Hor-haggidgad and camped at Jotbathah.

They moved out from Jotbathah and camped at Abronah.

They moved out from Abronah and camped at Ezion-geber [or Elath on the gulf of Aqabah].

They moved out from Ezion-geber and camped in the Wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh.

They moved out from Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor, on the edge of the land of Edom.