¹⁸ And [some] Sadducees came to Him, [of that party] who say there is no resurrection, and they asked Him a question, saying,

¹⁹ Teacher, Moses gave us [a law] that if a man’s brother died, leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.^(A)

²⁰ Now there were seven brothers; the first one took a wife and died, leaving no children.

²¹ And the second [brother] married her, and died, leaving no children; and the third did the same;

²² And all seven, leaving no children. Last of all, the woman died also.

²³ Now in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? For the seven were married to her.

²⁴ Jesus said to them, Is not this where you wander out of the way and go wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?

²⁵ For when they arise from among the dead, [men] do not marry nor are [women] given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

²⁶ But concerning the dead being raised—have you not read in the book of Moses, [in the passage] about the [burning] bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?^(B)

²⁷ He is not the God of [the] dead, but of [the] living! You are very wrong.

²⁸ Then one of the scribes came up and listened to them disputing with one another, and, noticing that Jesus answered them fitly and admirably, he asked Him, Which commandment is first and most important of all [^[a]in its nature]?

²⁹ Jesus answered, The first and principal one of all commands is: Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord;

³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God ^[b]out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your ^[c]life) and out of and with all your mind (with ^[d]your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. ^[e]This is the first and principal commandment.^(C)

³¹ The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.^(D)

³² And the scribe said to Him, Excellently and fitly and admirably answered, Teacher! You have said truly that He is One, and there is no other but Him;

³³ And to love Him out of and with all the heart and with all the understanding [with the ^[f]faculty of quick apprehension and intelligence and keenness of discernment] and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.^(E)

³⁴ And when Jesus saw that he answered intelligently (discreetly and ^[g]having his wits about him), He said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that no one ventured or dared to ask Him any further question.

³⁵ And as Jesus taught in [a ^[h]porch or court of] the temple, He said, How can the scribes say that the Christ is David’s Son?

³⁶ David himself, [inspired] in the Holy Spirit, declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies [a footstool] under Your feet.^(F)

³⁷ David himself calls Him Lord; so how can it be that He is his Son? Now the great mass of the people heard [Jesus] gladly [listening to Him with delight].

³⁸ And in [the course of] His teaching, He said, Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and [to get] greetings in the marketplaces [public forums],

³⁹ And [have] the front seats in the synagogues and the ^[i]chief couches (places of honor) at feasts,

⁴⁰ Who devour widows’ houses and to cover it up make long prayers. They will receive the heavier [sentence of] condemnation.

⁴¹ And He sat down opposite the treasury and saw how the crowd was casting money into the treasury. Many rich [people] were throwing in large sums.

⁴² And a widow who was poverty-stricken came and put in two copper mites [the smallest of coins], which together make ^[j]half of a cent.

⁴³ And He called His disciples [to Him] and said to them, Truly and surely I tell you, this widow, [she who is] poverty-stricken, has put in more than all those contributing to the treasury.

⁴⁴ For they all threw in out of their abundance; but she, out of her deep poverty, has put in everything that she had—[even] all she had on which to live.

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20 And the Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the Wilderness of Zin in the first month. And the people dwelt in Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there.

² Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled together against Moses and Aaron.

³ And the people contended with Moses, and said, Would that we had died when our brethren died [in the plague] before the Lord!^(A)

⁴ And why have you brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, we and our livestock?

⁵ And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us into this evil place? It is no place of grain or of figs or of vines or of pomegranates. And there is no water to drink.

⁶ Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to them.

⁷ And the Lord said to Moses,

⁸ Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to give forth its water, and you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink.

⁹ So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as He commanded him.

¹⁰ And Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation before the rock and Moses said to them, Hear now, you rebels; must we bring you water out of this rock?

¹¹ And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock ^[a]twice. And the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.

¹² And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in (rely on, cling to) Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Israelites, you therefore ^[b]shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.^(B)

¹³ These are the waters of Meribah [strife], where the Israelites contended with the Lord and He showed Himself holy among them.

¹⁴ And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying, Thus says your kinsman Israel: You know all the adversity and birth pangs that have come upon us [as a nation]:

¹⁵ How our fathers went down to Egypt; we dwelt there a long time, and the Egyptians dealt evilly with us and our fathers.

¹⁶ But when we cried to the Lord, He heard us and sent an angel and brought us forth out of Egypt. Now behold, we are in Kadesh, a city on your country’s edge.

¹⁷ Let us pass, I pray you, through your country. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink of the water of the wells. We will go along the king’s highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed your borders.

¹⁸ But Edom said to him, You shall not go through, lest I come out against you with the sword.

¹⁹ And the Israelites said to him, We will go by the highway, and if I and my livestock drink of your water, I will pay for it. Only let me pass through on foot, nothing else.

²⁰ But Edom said, You shall not go through. And Edom came out against Israel with many people and a strong hand.

²¹ Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, ^[c]so Israel turned away from him.

²² They journeyed from Kadesh, and the Israelites, even the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

²³ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor, on the border of the land of Edom,

²⁴ Aaron shall be gathered to his people. For he shall not enter the land which I have given to the Israelites, because you both rebelled against My instructions at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵ Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up to Mount Hor.

²⁶ Strip Aaron of his vestments and put them on Eleazar his son, and Aaron shall be gathered to his people, and shall die there.

²⁷ And Moses did as the Lord commanded; and they went up Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

²⁸ And Moses stripped Aaron of his [priestly] garments and put them on Eleazar his son. And Aaron died there on the mountain top; and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

²⁹ When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept and mourned for him thirty days, all the house of Israel.

21 When the Canaanite king of Arad, who dwelt in the South (the Negeb), heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim [the route traveled by the spies sent out by Moses], he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

² And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord, and said, If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.

³ And the Lord hearkened to Israel and gave over the Canaanites. And they utterly destroyed them and their cities; and the name of the place was called Hormah [a banned or devoted thing].

⁴ And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient (depressed, much discouraged), because [of the trials] of the way.

⁵ And the people spoke against God and against Moses, Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and we loathe this light (contemptible, unsubstantial) manna.

⁶ Then the Lord sent fiery (burning) serpents among the people; and they bit the people, and many Israelites died.

⁷ And the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord, that He may take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸ And the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent [of bronze] and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.

⁹ And Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole, and if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked to the serpent of bronze [^[d]attentively, expectantly, with a steady and absorbing gaze], he lived.

¹⁰ And the Israelites journeyed on and encamped at Oboth.

¹¹ They journeyed from Oboth and encamped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness opposite Moab, toward the sunrise.

¹² From there they journeyed and encamped in the Valley of Zared.

¹³ From there they journeyed and encamped on the other side of [the river] Arnon, which is in the desert or wilderness that extends from the frontier of the Amorites; for [the river] Arnon is the boundary of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

¹⁴ That is why it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord: Waheb in Suphah, and the valleys of [the branches of] the Arnon [River],

¹⁵ And the slope of the valleys that stretch toward the site of Ar and find support on the border of Moab.

¹⁶ From there the Israelites went on to Beer [a well], the well of which the Lord had said to Moses, Assemble the people together and I will give them water.^(C)

¹⁷ Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well! Let all sing to it,^(D)

¹⁸ The fountain that the princes opened, that the nobles of the people hollowed out from their staves. And from the wilderness or desert [Israel journeyed] to Mattanah,

¹⁹ And from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

²⁰ And from Bamoth to the valley that is in the field of Moab, to the top of Pisgah which looks down upon Jeshimon and the desert.

²¹ And Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

²² Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into field or vineyard; we will not drink the water of the wells. We will go by the king’s highway until we have passed your border.

²³ But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border. Instead Sihon gathered all his people together and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz, and he fought against Israel.

²⁴ And Israel smote the king of the Amorites with the edge of the sword and possessed his land from the river Arnon to the river Jabbok, as far as the Ammonites, for the boundary of the Ammonites was strong.

²⁵ And Israel took all these cities and dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon and in all its towns.

²⁶ For Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as [the river] Arnon.

²⁷ That is why those who sing ballads say, Come to Heshbon, let the city of Sihon be built and established.

²⁸ For fire has gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it has devoured Ar of Moab and the lords of the heights of the Arnon.

²⁹ Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, O people of [the god] Chemosh! Moab has given his sons as fugitives and his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.

³⁰ We have shot them down; Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon, and we have laid them waste as far as Nophah, which reaches to Medeba.

³¹ Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites.

³² And Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they took its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.

³³ Then they turned and went up by the way of Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

³⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.

³⁵ So the Israelites slew Og and his sons and all his people until there was not one left alive, And they possessed his land.