Numbers 17:9-13

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁹ Then Moses brought out all the staffs from before the Lord to all the Israelites; and they looked, and each man took his staff. ¹⁰ And the Lord said to Moses, “Put back the staff of Aaron before the covenant,^[a] to be kept as a warning to rebels, so that you may make an end of their complaints against me, or else they will die.” ¹¹ Moses did so; just as the Lord commanded him, so he did.

¹² The Israelites said to Moses, “We are perishing; we are lost, all of us are lost! ¹³ Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all to perish?”