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Numbers 17

    ²Speak to the Israelites and get from them rods or staves, one for each father's house, from all their leaders according to their father's houses, twelve rods. Write every man's name on his rod.

    ³And you shall write Aaron's name on the rod of Levi [his great-grandfather]. For there shall be one rod for the head of each father's house.

    ⁴You shall lay them up in the Tent of Meeting before [the ark of] the Testimony, where I meet with you.

    ⁵And the rod of the man whom I choose shall bud, and I will make to cease from Me the murmurings of the Israelites, which they murmur against you.

    ⁶And Moses spoke to the Israelites, and every one of their leaders gave him a rod or staff, one for each leader according to their fathers' houses, twelve rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods.

    ⁷And Moses deposited the rods before the Lord in the Tent of the Testimony.

    ⁸And the next day Moses went into the Tent of the Testimony, and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and brought forth buds and produced blossoms and yielded [ripe] almonds.

    ⁹Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the Israelites; and they looked, and each man took his rod.

    ¹⁰And the Lord told Moses, Put Aaron's rod back before the Testimony [in the ark], to be kept as a [warning] sign for the rebels; and you shall make an end of their murmurings against Me, lest they die.

    ¹¹And Moses did so; as the Lord commanded him, so he did.

    ¹²The Israelites said to Moses, Behold, we perish, we are undone, all undone!

    ¹³Everyone who comes near, who comes near the tabernacle of the Lord, dies or shall die! Are we all to perish?

Numbers 18

    ²And your brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your [fore]father, bring with you, that they may be joined to you and minister to you; but only you and your sons with you shall come before the Tent of the Testimony [into the Holy Place where only priests may go and into the Most Holy Place which only the high priest dares enter].

    ³And the Levites shall attend you [as servants] and attend to all the duties of the Tent; only they shall not come near the sacred vessels of the sanctuary or to the brazen altar, that they and also you [Aaron] die not.

    ⁴And they shall be joined to you and attend to the duties of the Tent of Meeting--all the [menial] service of the Tent--and no stranger [no layman, anyone who is not a Levite] shall come near you [Aaron and your sons].

    ⁵And you shall attend to the duties of the sanctuary and attend to the altar [of burnt offering and the altar of incense], that there be no wrath any more upon the Israelites [as in the incident of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram].^(A)

    ⁶And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the Israelites; to you they are a gift, given to the Lord, to do the [menial] service of the Tent of Meeting.

    ⁷Therefore you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood for everything of the altar [of burnt offering and the altar of incense] and [of the Holy of Holies] within the veil, and you shall serve. I give you your priesthood as a service of gift. And the stranger [anyone other than Moses or your sons, Aaron] who comes near shall be put to death.^(B)

    ⁸And the Lord said to Aaron, And I, behold, I have given you the charge of My heave offerings [whatever is taken out and kept of the offerings made to Me], all the dedicated and consecrated things of the Israelites; to you have I given them [as your portion] and to your sons as a continual allowance forever by reason of your anointing as priests.^(C)

    ⁹This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of the people, every cereal offering and sin offering and trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render to Me, shall be most holy for you [Aaron] and for your sons.

    ¹⁰As the most holy thing and in a sacred place shall you eat of it; every male [of your house] shall eat of it. It shall be holy to you.^(D)

    ¹¹And this also is yours: the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and to your daughters with you as a continual allowance forever; everyone in your house who is [ceremonially] clean may eat of it.

    ¹²All the best of the oil, and all the best of the [fresh] wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, to you have I given them.

    ¹³Whatever is first ripe in the land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. Everyone who is [ceremonially] clean in your house may eat of it.

    ¹⁴Every devoted thing in Israel [everything that has been vowed to the Lord] shall be yours.

    ¹⁵Everything that first opens the womb in all flesh, which they bring to the Lord, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be yours. Nevertheless the firstborn of man you shall surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts you shall redeem.

    ¹⁶And those that are to be redeemed of them, from a month old shall you redeem, according to your estimate [of their age], for the fixed price of five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

    ¹⁷But the firstling of a cow or of a sheep or of a goat you shall not redeem. They [as the firstborn of clean beasts belong to God and] are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood upon the altar and shall burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet and soothing odor to the Lord.

    ¹⁸And the flesh of them shall be yours, as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are yours.

    ¹⁹All the heave offerings [the lifted-out and kept portions] of the holy things which the Israelites give to the Lord I give to you and to your sons and your daughters with you, as a continual debt forever. It is a covenant of salt [that cannot be dissolved or violated] forever before the Lord for you [Aaron] and for your posterity with you.

    ²⁰And the Lord said to Aaron, You shall have no inheritance in the land [of the Israelites], neither shall you have any part among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites.

    ²¹And, behold, I have given the Levites all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance in return for their service which they serve, the [menial] service of the Tent of Meeting.

    ²²Henceforth the Israelites shall not come near the Tent of Meeting [the covered sanctuary, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies], lest they incur guilt and die.

    ²³But the Levites shall do the [menial] service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear and remove the iniquity of the people [that is, be answerable for the legal pollutions of the holy things and offer the necessary atonements for unintentional offenses in these matters]. It shall be a statute forever in all your generations, that among the Israelites the Levites have no inheritance [of land].

    ²⁴But the tithes of the Israelites, which they present as an offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites to inherit; therefore I have said to them, Among the Israelites they shall have no inheritance. [They have homes and cities and pasturage to use but not to possess as their personal inheritance.]

    ²⁵And the Lord said to Moses,

    ²⁶Moreover, you shall say to the Levites, When you take from the Israelites the tithe which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present an offering from it to the Lord, even a tenth of the tithe [paid by the people].

    ²⁷And what you lift out and keep [your heave offering] shall be credited to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor or as the fully ripe produce of the vine.

    ²⁸Likewise you shall also present an offering to the Lord of all your tithes which you receive from the Israelites; and therefore you shall give this heave offering [lifted out and kept] for the Lord to Aaron the priest.

    ²⁹Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every offering due to the Lord, of all the best of it, even the hallowed part lifted out and held back out of it [for the Levites].

    ³⁰Therefore you shall say to them, When you have lifted out and held back the best from it [and presented it to the Lord by giving it to yourselves, the Levites], then it shall be counted to [you] the Levites just as if it were the increase of the threshing floor or of the winepress.

    ³¹And you may eat it in every place, you and your households, for it is your reward for your service in the Tent of Meeting.

    ³²And you shall be guilty of no sin by reason of it when you have lifted out and held back the best of it; neither shall you have polluted the holy things of the Israelites, neither shall you die [because of it].

Numbers 19

    ²This is the ritual of the law which the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without spot, in which is no blemish, upon which a yoke has never come.

    ³And you shall give her to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring her outside the camp, and she shall be slaughtered before him.

    ⁴Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger and sprinkle it toward the front of the Tent of Meeting seven times.

    ⁵The heifer shall be burned in his sight, her skin, flesh, blood, and dung.

    ⁶And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet [stuff] and cast them into the midst of the burning heifer.

    ⁷Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; afterward he shall come into the camp, but he shall be unclean until evening.

    ⁸He who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening.

    ⁹And a man who is clean shall collect the ashes of the heifer and put them outside the camp in a clean place, and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for the water for impurity; it is a sin offering.

    ¹⁰And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until evening. This shall be to the Israelites and to the stranger who sojourns among them a perpetual statute.

    ¹¹He who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

    ¹²He shall purify himself with the water for impurity [made with the ashes of the burned heifer] on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

    ¹³Whoever touches the corpse of any who has died and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still upon him.

    ¹⁴This is the law when a man dies in a tent: all who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.

    ¹⁵And every open vessel, which has no covering fastened upon it, is unclean.

    ¹⁶And whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a dead man, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

    ¹⁷And for the unclean, they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering, and the running water shall be put with it in a vessel.

    ¹⁸And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the naturally dead, or the grave.

    ¹⁹And the clean person shall sprinkle [the water for purification] upon the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day the unclean man shall purify himself, and wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening.

    ²⁰But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for purification has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

    ²¹And it shall be a perpetual statute to them. He who sprinkles the water for impurity [upon another] shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.

    ²²And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.

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³⁰The apostles [sent out as missionaries] came back and gathered together to Jesus, and told Him all that they had done and taught.

    ³¹And He said to them, [^[a]As for you] come away by yourselves to a deserted place, and rest a while--for many were [continually] coming and going, and they had not even leisure enough to eat.

    ³²And they went away in a boat to a solitary place by themselves.

    ³³Now many [people] saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the surrounding towns, and they got there ahead [of those in the boat].

    ³⁴As Jesus landed, He saw a great crowd waiting, and He was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.

    ³⁵And when ^[b]the day was already far gone, His disciples came to Him and said, This is a desolate and isolated place, and the hour is now late.

    ³⁶Send the crowds away to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.

    ³⁷But He replied to them, Give them something to eat yourselves. And they said to Him, Shall we go and buy 200 ^[c]denarii [about forty dollars] worth of bread and give it to them to eat? [II Kings 4:42-44.]

    ³⁸And He said to them, How many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they [had looked and] knew, they said, Five [loaves] and two fish.

    ³⁹Then He commanded the people all to recline on the green grass by companies.

    ⁴⁰So they threw themselves down in ranks of hundreds and fifties [with the ^[d]regularity of an arrangement of beds of herbs, looking ^[e]like so many garden plots].

    ⁴¹And taking the five loaves and two fish, He looked up to heaven and, praising God, gave thanks and broke the loaves and kept on giving them to the disciples to set before the people; and He [also] divided the two fish among [them] all.

    ⁴²And they all ate and were satisfied.

    ⁴³And they took up twelve [^[f]small hand] baskets full of broken pieces [from the loaves] and of the fish.

    ⁴⁴And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men.

    ⁴⁵And at once He insisted that the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He was sending the throng away.

    ⁴⁶And after He had taken leave of them, He went off into the hills to pray.

    ⁴⁷Now when evening had come, the boat was out in the middle of the lake, and He was by Himself on the land.

    ⁴⁸And having seen that they were troubled and tormented in [their] rowing, for the wind was against them, about the fourth watch of the night [between 3:00-6:00 a.m.] He came to them, walking [directly] on the sea. And He acted as if He meant to pass by them,

    ⁴⁹But when they saw Him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and ^[g]raised a [deep, throaty] shriek of terror.

    ⁵⁰For they all saw Him and were agitated (troubled and filled with fear and dread). But immediately He talked with them and said, Take heart! I AM! Stop being alarmed and afraid.^(A)

    ⁵¹And He went up into the boat with them, and the wind ceased (^[h]sank to rest as if exhausted by its own beating). And they were astonished exceedingly [beyond measure],

    ⁵²For they failed to consider or understand [the teaching and meaning of the miracle of] the loaves; [in fact] their hearts had ^[i]grown callous [had become dull and had ^[j]lost the power of understanding].

    ⁵³And when they had crossed over, they reached the land of Gennesaret and ^[k]came to [anchor at] the shore.

    ⁵⁴As soon as they got out of the boat, [the people] recognized Him,

    ⁵⁵And they ran about the whole countryside, and began to carry around sick people on their sleeping pads or mats to any place where they heard that He was.

    ⁵⁶And wherever He came into villages or cities or the country, they would lay the sick in the marketplaces and beg Him that they might touch even the fringe of His outer garment, and as many as touched Him were restored to health.