Study Desk

Then Moses spoke to the people of Israel. And they took the one who swore against God and brought him away from the tents and killed him with stones. So the people of Israel did as the Lord told Moses.

But houses in towns that have no walls will be thought of as open fields. They may be let go, and will be returned in the Year of Jubilee.

You will go after those who hate you, and they will fall in front of you by the sword.

I will let the wild animals loose among you. They will rob you of your children and destroy your cattle. They will make you few in number, so that your roads will be empty.

When I take away your bread of life, ten women will make your bread in one stove. They will give out your bread by weight. And you will eat it and not be filled.

Of those of you who are left in the lands of those who hate you, I will make their hearts weak. The sound of a leaf blown by the wind will make them run away even when no one is going after them. They will run away as if it were a sword, and they will fall.

‘If they tell their sins and the sins of their fathers which they did when they were not faithful to Me and were against Me with anger,

(I also was angry with them and brought them into the land of those who hate them) if their sinful heart loses its pride and they are willing to turn away from their sin,

But the land will be left behind them and become better with its Days of Rest while it lies empty without them. During this time they will turn away from their sin because they had not done what I told them to do and their soul hated My Laws.

Yet even when they are in the land of those who hate them, I will not turn away from them. I will not hate them enough to destroy them and break My agreement with them. For I am the Lord their God.

And they gathered all the people together on the first day of the second month. The people gave their names by families, by their fathers' houses, by the number of names from twenty years old and older, head by head.

But have the Levites take care of the meeting tent of the Law, and all that is in it, and all that belongs to it. They will carry the meeting tent and all that goes in it. They will take care of it, and set up their tents around it.

"The people of Israel will set up their tents, each by his own flag and beside that of their fathers'. They will set up their tents to face the meeting tent on every side.

So the people of Israel did all that the Lord had told Moses. They set up their tents by their flags. And they left to move on in the same way, every one by his family and by his father's house.

But Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they made a fire that was not holy to the Lord in the Desert of Sinai. And they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar worked as religious leaders during the life-time of their father Aaron.

They will do the duties for him and for all the people in front of the meeting tent. They will do the work around the meeting tent,

and will keep all the things that belong to the meeting tent. They will take care of the duties for the people of Israel as they work around the meeting tent.

You will give the Levites to Aaron and his sons. They are all given to him from among the people of Israel.

For all the first-born are Mine. On the day that I killed all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I set apart for My own all the first-born in Israel, both man and animal. They will be Mine. I am the Lord."

And they were to take care of the curtains for the door of the open space, and all curtains around the meeting tent and the altar and their ropes. They did all the work having to do with them.