Study Desk

and each time they moved, they were in the same order. Those under the banner of the division led by the tribe of Judah started out first, company by company, with Nahshon son of Amminadab in command.

There were foreigners traveling with the Israelites. They had a strong craving for meat, and even the Israelites themselves began to complain: "If only we could have some meat!

Where could I get enough meat for all these people? They keep whining and asking for meat.

I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the spirit I have given you and give it to them. Then they can help you bear the responsibility for these people, and you will not have to bear it alone.

Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him. He took some of the spirit he had given to Moses and gave it to the seventy leaders. When the spirit came on them, they began to shout like prophets, but not for long.

Two of the seventy leaders, Eldad and Medad, had stayed in the camp and had not gone out to the Tent. There in the camp the spirit came on them, and they too began to shout like prophets.

Suddenly the Lord sent a wind that brought quails from the sea, flying three feet above the ground. They settled on the camp and all around it for miles and miles in every direction.

So all that day, all night, and all the next day, the people worked catching quails; no one gathered less than fifty bushels. They spread them out to dry all around the camp.

Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, "I want the three of you to come out to the Tent of my presence." They went,

Then they left Hazeroth and set up camp in the wilderness of Paran.

They complained against Moses and Aaron, and said, "It would have been better to die in Egypt or even here in the wilderness!

So they said to one another, "Let's choose a leader and go back to Egypt!"

I will send an epidemic and destroy them, but I will make you the father of a nation that is larger and more powerful than they are!"

they will tell it to the people who live in this land. These people have already heard that you, Lord , are with us, that you appear in plain sight when your cloud stops over us, and that you go before us in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

And now, Lord , according to the greatness of your unchanging love, forgive, I pray, the sin of these people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt."

none of these people will live to enter that land. They have seen the dazzling light of my presence and the miracles that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have tried my patience over and over again and have refused to obey me.

The men Moses had sent to explore the land brought back a false report which caused the people to complain against the Lord . And so the Lord struck them with a disease, and they died.

And if at any time foreigners living among you, whether on a temporary or a permanent basis, make a food offering, an odor that pleases the Lord , they are to observe the same regulations.

For all time to come, the same rules are binding on you and on the foreigners who live among you. You and they are alike in the Lord 's sight;

If the mistake was made because of the ignorance of the community, they are to offer a bull as a burnt offering, an odor that pleases the Lord , with the proper grain offering and wine offering. In addition, they are to offer a male goat as a sin offering.