Numbers 16:20-35

The Message

^20-21 God said to Moses and Aaron, “Separate yourselves from this congregation so that I can finish them off and be done with them.”

²² They threw themselves on their faces and said, “O God, God of everything living, when one man sins are you going to take it out on the whole community?”

^23-24 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the community. Tell them, Back off from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”

^25-26 Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram. The leaders of Israel followed him. He then spoke to the community: “Back off from the tents of these bad men; don’t touch a thing that belongs to them lest you be carried off on the flood of their sins.”

²⁷ So they all backed away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram by now had come out and were standing at the entrance to their tents with their wives, children, and babies.

^28-30 Moses continued to address the community: “This is how you’ll know that it was God who sent me to do all these things and that it wasn’t anything I cooked up on my own. If these men die a natural death like all the rest of us, you’ll know that it wasn’t God who sent me. But if God does something unprecedented—if the ground opens up and swallows the lot of them and they are pitched alive into Sheol—then you’ll know that these men have been insolent with God.”

^31-33 The words were hardly out of his mouth when the Earth split open. Earth opened its mouth and in one gulp swallowed them down, the men and their families, all the human beings connected with Korah, along with everything they owned. And that was the end of them, pitched alive into Sheol. The Earth closed up over them and that was the last the community heard of them.

³⁴ At the sound of their cries everyone around ran for dear life, shouting, “We’re about to be swallowed up alive!”

³⁵ Then God sent lightning. The fire cremated the 250 men who were offering the incense.