This was the order of march of the sons of Israel by their armies as they moved out.

The cloud of the Lord was over them by day when they set out from the camp.

Now the people became like those who complain and whine about their hardships, and the Lord heard it; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and devoured those in the outlying parts of the camp.

The manna was like coriander seed, and it looked like bdellium.

Now Moses heard the people weeping [in self-pity] throughout their families, every man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses regarded their behavior as evil.

Say to the people, ‘Consecrate (separate as holy) yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept [in self-pity] in the ears of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For we were well-off in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat.

Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him; and He took some of the Spirit who was upon Moses and put Him upon the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied [praising God and declaring His will], but they did not do it again.

While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck them with a very severe plague.

So that place was named Kibroth-hattaavah (the graves of greediness), because there they buried the people who had been greedy [for more than the manna that God provided them].

(Now the man Moses was very humble (gentle, kind, devoid of self-righteousness), more than any man who was on the face of the earth.)

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Miriam and Aaron, and He departed.

But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned and looked at Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.

So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was brought in again [and declared ceremonially clean from her leprosy].

and what the land is, whether it is fat (productive) or lean, whether there is timber on it or not. Make an effort to get some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.

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

That place was called the Valley of Eshcol (cluster of grapes) because of the cluster of grapes which the sons of Israel cut down there.

‘Because the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which He promised to give them, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’

then it shall be, if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bull as a burnt offering, as a sweet and soothing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat as a sin offering.

Then the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and they will be forgiven, for it was an error and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their error.

Now while the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man who was gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

and they put him in custody, because it had not been explained [by God] what should be done to him.

Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, “Pay no attention to their offering! I have not taken one donkey from them, nor have I harmed any one of them.”

When the congregation was assembled against Moses and Aaron, they turned and looked at the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory and brilliance of the Lord appeared.

So Aaron took the burning censer as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the assembly; and behold, the plague had [already] begun among the people; and he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.

He stood between the dead and the living, so that the plague was brought to an end.

Then Aaron returned to Moses at the doorway of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), for the plague had been brought to an end.

So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and each of their leaders gave him a rod, one for each leader according to their fathers’ households, twelve rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods.

Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; and afterward come into the camp, but he shall be [ceremonially] unclean until evening.

The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening.

The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until evening. This shall be a perpetual statute to the Israelites and to the stranger who lives as a resident alien among them.

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.

Then the clean person shall sprinkle [the water for purification] on the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day the unclean man shall purify himself, and wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and shall be [ceremonially] clean at evening.

So it shall be a perpetual statute to them. He who sprinkles the water for impurity [on another] shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.

Then the Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the Wilderness of Zin in the first month [in the fortieth year after leaving Egypt]. And the people lived in Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.

Now there was no water for the congregation, and they gathered together against Moses and Aaron.

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

When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev (the South country) heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim [the route traveled by the spies sent out by Moses], he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

The Lord heard the voice of Israel and handed over the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of the place was called Hormah (dedicate to destruction).

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 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.

So the sons of Israel killed Og and his sons and all his people, until there was no survivor left to him; and they took possession of his land.

So Moab was terrified because of the people, for they were numerous. Moab was overcome with fear because of the sons of Israel.

But God’s anger was kindled because he was going, and the Angel of the Lord took His stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.

The Angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left.

When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam, so Balaam was angry and he struck the donkey [a third time] with his staff.

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life until this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?” And he said, “No.”

Balaam returned to Balak, and behold, he was standing by his burnt sacrifice, he and all the leaders of Moab.

When Balaam returned to Balak, he was standing beside his burnt offering, and the leaders of Moab were with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the Lord spoken?”

Then Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together; and Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have done nothing but bless them these three times.

So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor [in worship]. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

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.

And it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous (impassioned) for [the unique honor and respect owed to] his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.’”

Now the name of the man of Israel who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri the son of Salu, a leader of a father’s household among the Simeonites.

The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi the daughter of Zur, who was the tribal head of a father’s household in Midian.

for they harass you with their tricks, the tricks with which they have deceived you in the matter [of the Baal] of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the leader of Midian, their sister, who was killed on the day of the plague because [of the Baal] of Peor.”

These are the families (clans) of the Reubenites; and those who were numbered of them were 43,730.

The sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites; and Machir was the father of Gilead; of Gilead, the family of the Gileadites.

These are the families (clans) of Manasseh; and those who were numbered of them were 52,700.

These are the sons of Benjamin according to their families (clans); and those who were numbered, 45,600.

And the name of the daughter of Asher was Serah.

This was the [total] number of the [male] Israelites, 601,730 [twenty years old and upward who were able to go to war].

These are the families of Levi: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korahites. And Kohath was the father of Amram.

The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and to Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and Miriam their sister.

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.

But among these there was not a man [left] of those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest, who numbered the sons of Israel [for the first time] in the Wilderness of Sinai.

For the Lord had said of them, “They shall certainly 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. He was not among those who assembled together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but he died for his own sin [as did all those who rebelled at Kadesh], and he had no sons.

When you have seen it, you too will be gathered to your people [in death], just as Aaron your brother was gathered;

It is a continual burnt offering which was ordained on Mount Sinai as a sweet and soothing aroma, an offering by fire to the Lord.

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

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

“You and Eleazar the priest and the leaders of the fathers’ households of the congregation are to take a count of the spoil of war that was captured, both people and livestock.

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

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

and the Lord’s levy (tax) of the sheep was 675;

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.

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

now the congregation’s half was 337,500 sheep,

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

Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had very large herds of cattle, and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead [on the east side of the Jordan River], and indeed, the place was suitable for raising livestock.

And the Lord’s anger was kindled on that day and He swore an oath, saying,

So the Lord’s anger was kindled against the sons of Israel (Jacob) 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.

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

Aaron was a hundred and twenty-three years old when he died on Mount Hor.

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,

The congregation shall rescue the offender from the hand of the blood avenger and return him to his city of refuge, [the place] to which he had escaped; and he shall live there until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the sacred oil.

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.

“And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and took an oath, saying,

The Lord was angry with me also because of you, saying, ‘Not even you shall enter Canaan.

Now thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley, until that entire generation of the men of war had died from within the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them.

Moreover the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp, until they were all dead.

From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the city which is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was no city [whose wall was] too high and too strong for us; the Lord our God handed over everything to us.

So the Lord our God also handed over Og king of Bashan, and all his people, into our hand and we struck him until no survivor was left.

We captured all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

(For only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the [the giants known as the] Rephaim. Behold, his bed frame was a bed frame of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It was nine cubits (12 ft.) long and four cubits (6 ft.) wide, using the cubit of a man [the forearm to the end of the middle finger].)

But the Lord was angry with me because of you [and your rebellion at Meribah], and would not listen to me; and the Lord said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to Me no longer about this matter.

Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form—there was only a voice.