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32 In spite of all this they still sinned;
    they did not believe in his wonders.(A)

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22 because they had no faith in God
    and did not trust his saving power.(A)

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Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram

16 Now Korah son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, along with Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth son[a] of Reuben, took(A) two hundred fifty Israelite men, leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men, and they confronted Moses.(B) They assembled against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. So why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”(C) When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.(D) Then he spoke to Korah and all his congregation, saying, “In the morning the Lord will make known who is his and who is holy and who will be allowed to approach him; the one whom he will choose he will allow to approach him.(E) Do this: take censers, Korah and all your[b] congregation, and tomorrow put fire in them, and lay incense on them before the Lord, and the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the holy one. You Levites have gone too far!” Then Moses said to Korah, “Hear now, you Levites! Is it too little for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to allow you to approach him in order to perform the duties of the Lord’s tabernacle and to stand before the congregation and serve them?(F) 10 He has allowed you to approach him, and all your brother Levites with you, yet you seek the priesthood as well! 11 Therefore you and all your congregation have gathered together against the Lord. What is Aaron that you rail against him?”(G)

12 Moses sent for Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, but they said, “We will not come! 13 Is it too little that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also lord it over us?(H) 14 It is clear you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Would you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come!”(I)

15 Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, “Pay no attention to their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed any one of them.”(J) 16 And Moses said to Korah, “As for you and all your congregation, be present tomorrow before the Lord, you and they and Aaron,(K) 17 and let each one of you take his censer and put incense on it and each one of you present his censer before the Lord, two hundred fifty censers, you also, and Aaron, each his censer.”

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Footnotes

  1. 16.1 Heb mss Sam Q ms Gk: Heb descendants
  2. 16.6 Heb his

The People Rebel

14 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!(A) Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain and go back to Egypt.”

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the Israelites.(B) And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, “The land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land.(C) If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.(D) Only, do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”(E) 10 But the whole congregation threatened to stone them.

Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.(F) 11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?(G) 12 I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”(H)

Moses Intercedes for the People

13 But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them,(I) 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people, for you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.(J) 15 Now if you kill this people as one, then the nations who have heard about you will say, 16 ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’(K) 17 And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying,

18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love,
forgiving iniquity and transgression,
but by no means clearing the guilty,
visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
to the third and the fourth generation.’(L)

19 “Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”(M)

20 Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked;(N) 21 nevertheless, as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,(O) 22 none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.(P) 25 Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”[a](Q)

An Attempted Invasion Is Repulsed

26 And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27 “How long shall this wicked congregation complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they complain against me.(R) 28 Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘I will do to you the very things I heard you say:(S) 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this very wilderness, and of all your number included in the census from twenty years old and up who have complained against me,(T) 30 not one of you shall come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.(U) 31 But your little ones, who you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have despised.(V) 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.(W) 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.(X) 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’(Y) 35 I the Lord have spoken; surely I will do thus to all this wicked congregation gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”(Z)

36 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report about the land,(AA) 37 the men who brought an unfavorable report about the land died by a plague before the Lord. 38 But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh alone remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land.(AB)

39 When Moses told these words to all the Israelites, the people mourned greatly.(AC) 40 They rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.”(AD) 41 But Moses said, “Why do you continue to transgress the command of the Lord? That will not succeed. 42 Do not go up, for the Lord is not with you; do not let yourselves be struck down before your enemies.(AE) 43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will confront you there, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.” 44 But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, even though the ark of the covenant of the Lord and Moses had not left the camp.(AF) 45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them, pursuing them as far as Hormah.(AG)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.25 Or Sea of Reeds

37 Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.

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31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

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13 But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not observe my statutes but rejected my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live, and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned.

Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make an end of them.(A)

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11 They forgot what he had done
    and the miracles that he had shown them.(A)

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Worship of Baal of Peor

25 While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab.(A) These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.(B) Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel.(C) The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and impale them in the sun before the Lord, in order that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.”(D) And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”

Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand,(E) he went after the Israelite man into the tent and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the Israelites. Nevertheless those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.(F)

10 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf that in my jealousy I did not consume the Israelites.(G) 12 Therefore say, ‘I hereby grant him my covenant of peace.(H) 13 It shall be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.’ ”(I)

14 The name of the slain Israelite man who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, head of an ancestral house belonging to the Simeonites. 15 The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur, who was the head of a clan, an ancestral house in Midian.(J)

16 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Harass the Midianites, and defeat them,(K) 18 for they have harassed you by the trickery with which they deceived you in the affair of Peor, and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister; she was killed on the day of the plague that resulted from Peor.”(L)

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The Bronze Serpent

21 When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.(A) Then Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed give this people into our hands, then we will utterly destroy their towns.” The Lord listened to the voice of Israel and handed over the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their towns; so the place was called Hormah.[a]

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,[b] to go around the land of Edom, but the people became discouraged on the way.(B) The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”(C) Then the Lord sent poisonous[c] serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. 21.3 That is, destruction
  2. 21.4 Or Sea of Reeds
  3. 21.6 Or fiery