Study Desk

Said to all the children of Israel, This land which we went through to see is a very good land.

But all the people said they were to be stoned. Then the glory of the Lord was seen in the Tent of meeting, before the eyes of all the children of Israel.

The Lord is slow to wrath and great in mercy, overlooking wrongdoing and evil, and will not let wrongdoers go free; sending punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation.

And your children will be wanderers in the waste land for forty years, undergoing punishment for your false ways, till your bodies become dust in the waste land.

And when Moses put these words before the children of Israel, the people were full of grief.

Say to the children of Israel, When you have come into the land which I am giving to you for your resting-place,

Say to the children of Israel, When you come into the land where I am guiding you,

And all the meeting of the children of Israel, as well as those from other lands living among them, will have forgiveness; for it was an error on the part of the people.

Now while the children of Israel were in the waste land, they saw a man who was getting sticks on the Sabbath day.

Say to the children of Israel that through all their generations they are to put on the edges of their robes an ornament of twisted threads, and in every ornament a blue cord;

And came before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty chiefs of the people, men of good name who had a place in the meeting of the people.

And let the vessels of those men, who with their lives have made payment for their sin, be hammered out into plates as a cover for the altar; for they have been offered before the Lord and are holy; so that they may be a sign to the children of Israel.

To be a sign, kept in memory for ever by the children of Israel, that no man who is not of the seed of Aaron has the right of burning spices before the Lord, so that he may not be like Korah and his band: as the Lord said to him by the mouth of Moses.

But on the day after, all the children of Israel made an outcry against Moses and against Aaron, saying, You have put to death the Lord's people.

Say to the children of Israel that they are to give you rods, one for every family, for every chief, the head of his father's house, making twelve rods; let every man's name be placed on his rod.

And the rod of that man who is marked out by me for myself will have buds on it; so I will put a stop to the outcries which the children of Israel make to me against you.

So Moses gave these orders to the children of Israel, and all their chiefs gave him rods, one for the head of every family, making twelve rods: and Aaron's rod was among them.

Then Moses took out all the rods from before the Lord, and gave them back to the children of Israel: and they saw them, and every man took his rod.

And the children of Israel said to Moses, Truly, destruction has come on us; an evil fate has overtaken us all.

You are to be responsible for the holy place and the altar, so that wrath may never again come on the children of Israel.