Study Desk

Then Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought the one who had cursed outside the camp, and stoned him with stones. So the sons of Israel did just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

'The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall, shall be regarded as open fields; they have redemption rights and revert in the jubilee.

'You may also acquire them from the sons of the foreign residents who reside among you, and from their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession.

'Instead, you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword;

'When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread in rationed amounts, so that you will eat and not be satisfied.

'As for those among you who are left, I will also bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a scattered leaf will chase them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee as though from the sword, and they will fall.

'They will then stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength to stand before your enemies.

'So those of you who may be left will rot away because of their wrongdoing in the lands of your enemies; and also because of the wrongdoing of their forefathers they will rot away with them.

'But if they confess their wrongdoing and the wrongdoing of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—

'For the land will be abandoned by them, and will restore its Sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their wrongdoing, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul loathed My statutes.

and they assembled all the congregation on the first day of the second month. Then they registered by ancestry in their families, by their fathers' households, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, head by head,

"And you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings and over everything that belongs to it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it; they shall also camp around the tabernacle.

And the sons of Israel did so; in accordance with all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so they did.

"The total of the numbered men of the camp of Reuben: 151,450 by their armies. And they shall set out second.

"The total of the numbered men of the camp of Ephraim: 108,100, by their armies. And they shall set out third.

So the sons of Israel did all this; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so they camped by their flags, and so they set out, everyone by his family according to his father's household.

But Nadab and Abihu died in the presence of the LORD when they offered strange fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of their father Aaron.

"Bring the tribe of Levi forward and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may serve him.

"They shall perform the duties for him and for the whole congregation in front of the tent of meeting, to do the service of the tabernacle.

"So you shall assign the Levites to Aaron and to his sons; they are exclusively assigned to him from the sons of Israel.