³⁶ Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey,^(A)

¹⁹ you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud that led them in the way did not leave them by day nor the pillar of fire by night that gave them light on the way by which they should go.^(A)

¹⁷ Whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, then the Israelites would set out, and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the Israelites would camp.^(A)

²¹ The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.^{(A) 22} Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

Warnings from Israel’s History

10 I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,^(A)

¹⁷ For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt purification offering, and running water shall be added in a vessel;^{(A) 18} then a clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the furnishings, on the persons who were there, and on whoever touched the bone, the slain, the corpse, or the grave. ¹⁹ The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean ones on the third day and on the seventh day, thus purifying them on the seventh day. Then they shall wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water, and at evening they shall be clean.^{(B) 20} Any who are unclean but do not purify themselves, those persons shall be cut off from the assembly, for they have defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. Since the water for cleansing has not been dashed on them, they are unclean.^(C)

²¹ “It shall be a perpetual statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water for cleansing shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water for cleansing shall be unclean until evening. ²² Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.”^(D)

³³ So they set out from the mount of the Lord three days’ journey with the ark of the covenant of the Lord going before them three days’ journey, to seek out a resting place for them,^{(A) 34} the cloud of the Lord being over them by day when they set out from the camp.^(B)

³⁵ Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say,

³⁶ And whenever it came to rest, he would say,

Departure from Sinai

¹¹ In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle of the covenant.^{(A) 12} Then the Israelites set out by stages from the wilderness of Sinai, and the cloud settled down in the wilderness of Paran. ¹³ They set out for the first time at the command of the Lord by Moses.^(B)