Study Desk

"Stand back! I am going to wipe out these Israelites once and for all." They immediately bowed down and prayed.

Then Moses told Aaron, "Grab your fire pan and fill it with hot coals from the altar. Put incense in it, then quickly take it to where the people are and offer it to the Lord , so they can be forgiven. The Lord is very angry, and people have already started dying!"

Moses told the people what the Lord had commanded, and they gave him the walking sticks from the twelve tribal leaders, including Aaron's from the Levi tribe.

The Lord said to Aaron: Ten percent of the Israelites' crops and one out of every ten of their newborn animals belong to me. But I am giving all this to the Levites as their pay for the work they do at the sacred tent.

They are the only ones allowed to work at the tent, and they must not let anyone else come near it. Those who do must be put to death, and the Levites will also be punished. This law will never change. Since the Levites won't be given any land in Israel as their own,

they will be given the crops and newborn animals that the Israelites offer to me.

You won't be punished for eating it, as long as you have already offered the best parts to me. The gifts and sacrifices brought by the people must remain sacred, and if you eat any part of them before they are offered to me, you will be put to death.

The Israelites had no water, so they went to Moses and Aaron

Moses and Aaron went to the entrance to the sacred tent, where they bowed down. The Lord appeared to them in all of his glory

The Israelites had complained against the Lord , and he had shown them his holy power by giving them water to drink. So they named the place Meribah, which means "Complaining."

the people knew that Aaron had died, and they mourned his death for thirty days.

The Israelites prayed, "Our Lord , if you will help us defeat these Canaanites, we will completely destroy their towns and everything in them, to show that they belong to you."

that they complained against God and said to Moses, "Did you bring us out of Egypt, just to let us die in the desert? There's no water out here, and we can't stand this awful food!"

Moses obeyed the Lord . And all of those who looked at the bronze snake lived, even though they had been bitten by the poisonous snakes.

After that, they crossed the Arnon River gorge and camped in the Moabite desert bordering Amorite territory. The Arnon was the border between the Moabites and the Amorites.

When King Balak of Moab and his people heard how many Israelites there were and what they had done to the Amorites, he and the Moabites were terrified and panicked.

They are too powerful for us to defeat, so would you come and place a curse on them? Maybe then we can run them off. I know that anyone you bless will be successful, but anyone you curse will fail.

The leaders of Moab and Midian left and took along money to pay Balaam for his work. When they got to his house, they gave him Balak's message.

to ask me to go to Moab and place a curse on the people who have come there from Egypt. They have settled everywhere around him, and he wants to run them off."

They went to Balaam and told him that Balak had said, "Balaam, if you come to Moab,