Study Desk

he cried out to Moses, "Oh, my master! Please don't punish us for this sin we have so foolishly committed.

But the Lord said to Moses, "If her father had done nothing more than spit in her face, wouldn't she be defiled for seven days? So keep her outside the camp for seven days, and after that she may be accepted back."

So Miriam was kept outside the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back before they traveled again.

Is the soil fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see." (It happened to be the season for harvesting the first ripe grapes.)

After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned

"Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn't it be better for us to return to Egypt?"

"Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed. For you said,

Now turn around, and don't go on toward the land where the Amalekites and Canaanites live. Tomorrow you must set out for the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea."

But as for you, you will drop dead in this wilderness.

And your children will be like shepherds, wandering in the wilderness for forty years. In this way, they will pay for your faithlessness, until the last of you lies dead in the wilderness.

"‘Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins. Then you will discover what it is like to have me for an enemy.'

For each lamb offered as a burnt offering or a special sacrifice, you must also present one quart of wine as a liquid offering.

Native-born Israelites and foreigners are equal before the Lord and are subject to the same decrees. This is a permanent law for you, to be observed from generation to generation.

If the mistake was made unintentionally, and the community was unaware of it, the whole community must present a young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord . It must be offered along with its prescribed grain offering and liquid offering and with one male goat for a sin offering.

With it the priest will purify the whole community of Israel, making them right with the Lord , and they will be forgiven. For it was an unintentional sin, and they have corrected it with their offerings to the Lord —the special gift and the sin offering.

The whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including the foreigners living among you, for all the people were involved in the sin.

"If one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering.

Since they have treated the Lord 's word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt."

"Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord.

The Lord is the one you and your followers are really revolting against! For who is Aaron that you are complaining about him?"