Study Desk

'For the children of Israel are My servants; My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

'I will let loose the [wild] animals of the field among you, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you so few in number that your roads will lie deserted and desolate.

"Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, 'When a man makes a special vow [consecrating himself or a member of his family], he shall be valued according to your [established system of] valuation of people belonging to the LORD [that is, the priest accepts from the man making the vow a specified amount of money for the temple treasury in place of the actual person].

These are the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses on Mount Sinai for the children of Israel.

'But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she will be free and conceive children.

"So Aaron and his sons shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them."

"You shall present the Levites before the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), and you shall also assemble the whole congregation of the children of Israel,

Thus Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel did [these things] to the Levites; in accordance with all that the LORD had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so the Israelites did to them.

But Moses said, "The people, among whom I am, are 600,000 [fighting men] on foot [besides all the women and children]; yet You have said, 'I will give them meat, so that they may eat it for a whole month!'

"Why is the LORD bringing us to this land [of Canaan], to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?"

'The LORD is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving wickedness and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting (avenging) the wickedness and guilt of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generations [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers].'

'But your children whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will know the land which you have despised and rejected.

So they got back from around the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents with their wives and their sons and their little children.

Then the LORD said to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in the land [of the Israelites], nor have any portion [of land] among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel.

"Only the Levites shall perform the service of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that the Levites shall have no inheritance [of land] among the children of Israel.

"But the tithe of the Israelites, which they present as an offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance; therefore I have said to them, 'They shall have no inheritance among the children of Israel.'"

'You will bear no sin because of it when you have offered the best of it; but you shall not profane the sacred gifts of the children of Israel, or you will die [because of it].'"

"Aaron will be gathered to his people [in death]; for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you [both] rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.

The sons of Israel captured the women of Midian and their children; and all their cattle, all their livestock, and all their property they took as spoil [of war].

"Now therefore, kill every male among the children, and kill every woman who is not a virgin.