Numbers 15:17-16:40

Modern English Version

¹⁷ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ¹⁸ Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land where I bring you, ¹⁹ then it will be, when you eat of the bread of the land you will offer up an offering to the Lord. ²⁰ From the first of your dough you will offer a cake as an offering. As you make the offering of the threshing floor, so will you offer it. ²¹ Of the first of your dough you will give to the Lord an offering throughout your generations.

Laws About Unintentional Sins

²² If you have erred and not observed all these commandments which the Lord has spoken to Moses, ²³ even all that the Lord has commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the Lord commanded Moses and onward through your generations, ²⁴ then it will be, if it is committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the assembly, that all the assembly will offer one young bull as a burnt offering, as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the rule, and one kid of the goats as a sin offering. ²⁵ The priest will make atonement for all the assembly of the children of Israel, and it will be forgiven them because it is ignorance, and they will bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their ignorance. ²⁶ And it will be forgiven all the assembly of the children of Israel and the foreigner who lives among them, because all the people were in ignorance.

²⁷ If a person sins unintentionally, then he will bring a year-old female goat as a sin offering. ²⁸ The priest will make an atonement for the person who sins unintentionally, when he sins by ignorance before the Lord, to make an atonement for him; and it will be forgiven him. ²⁹ You shall have one law for the person who acts through ignorance, for the natural-born citizen among the children of Israel and foreigner who lives in your midst.

Laws About Intentional Sins

³⁰ But the person who acts by a high hand, the natural-born citizen or the foreigner, the same reviles the Lord, and that person will be cut off from among his people. ³¹ Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person will be totally cut off. His iniquity will be on him.

The Sabbath-Breaker Executed

³² While the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day. ³³ The ones who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the assembly. ³⁴ They put him in confinement because it was not declared what should be done to him. ³⁵ The Lord said to Moses, “The man will surely die. All the assembly will stone him with stones outside the camp.” ³⁶ All the assembly brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died as the Lord commanded Moses.

Tassels on Garments

³⁷ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ³⁸ Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them to make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout the generations to come, and they will put a ribbon of blue on the corners of their garments. ³⁹ And it will be for you a tassel, and you will see it, and you will remember all the commandments of the Lord, and you will do them, and you will not follow the lust of your own heart and your own eyes. ⁴⁰ So shall you remember and do all My commandments, and be holy to your God. ⁴¹ I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.

Opposition to Moses and Aaron

16 Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men, ² and they rose up before Moses and men of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty chiefs of the assembly, famous in the assembly, well-known men. ³ They assembled against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. So why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”

⁴ And when Moses heard it, he fell on his face, ⁵ and he spoke to Korah and to all his company, saying, “In the morning the Lord will show who is His and who is holy, and He will bring him to come near to Him. Whom He has chosen He will bring near to Him. ⁶ Do this: Take censers, Korah and all his company; ⁷ put fire in them, and put incense in them before the Lord tomorrow, and it will be that the man whom the Lord chooses, he will be holy. You take too much upon yourselves, sons of Levi.”

⁸ Moses said to Korah, “Listen, please, sons of Levi. ⁹ Does it seem a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the assembly of Israel to bring you near to Himself to do the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the assembly to minister to them? ¹⁰ And He has brought you near to Him, and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you, and you also seek the priesthood? ¹¹ Therefore both you and all your company are gathered together against the Lord, and who is Aaron that you murmur against him?”

¹² And Moses sent for Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, who said, “We will not come up. ¹³ Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land that flows with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness because you make yourself a prince over us? ¹⁴ Moreover you have not brought us into a land that flows with milk and honey nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up.”

¹⁵ Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, “Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, nor have I hurt one of them.”

¹⁶ Moses said to Korah, “You and all your company be before the Lord, you and them and Aaron, tomorrow. ¹⁷ Let each man take his censer and put incense in it, and each of you bring his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty censers. Also you and Aaron shall each bring his censer.” ¹⁸ Every man took his censer and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and stood at the door of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron. ¹⁹ Korah gathered all the assembly against them to the door of the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the assembly. ²⁰ The Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: ²¹ Separate yourselves from among this assembly, that I may consume them in a moment.

²² They fell on their faces and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, will one man sin and You will be angry with all the assembly?”

²³ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁴ Speak to the assembly, saying: Get up from around the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

²⁵ Moses rose up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. ²⁶ He spoke to the assembly, saying, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away for all their sins.” ²⁷ So they got up from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood in the opening of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their children.

²⁸ Moses said, “By this you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, because I have not done them of my own mind. ²⁹ If these men die the common death of all men, or if they are visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. ³⁰ But if the Lord makes a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will know that these men have despised the Lord.”

³¹ So it was, when he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split open. ³² And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, and their houses, and all the men that belonged to Korah, and all their goods. ³³ And they and all that belonged to them went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed on them, and they perished from among the assembly. ³⁴ All Israel that was around them fled at their cry because they said, “The earth will swallow us also.”

³⁵ A fire went out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

³⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ³⁷ Tell Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest to take up the censers out of the blaze, for they are holy. Then scatter the fire far and wide. ³⁸ As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their own lives, make them into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they presented them before the Lord and they are holy. They shall be a sign to the children of Israel.

³⁹ So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out as a covering on the altar, ⁴⁰ to be a memorial to the children of Israel, that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, shall approach to offer incense before the Lord, that he might not become like Korah and his company, as the Lord has said to him through Moses.