Beginning
18 Eternal One (to Aaron): It’s on you and your sons and your extended family that the responsibility for this sanctuary lies. Any offense against the sacred meeting place, whether the sanctuary or the priesthood, is to be born by the members of your ancestral house. 2 So gather your extended family, your immediate family and those belonging to your staff, the tribe of Levi, so that they understand you’re all in this together. Your brothers from the greater Levi family will assist you while you and your sons come up to the tent holding the covenant. 3-5 Those Levites will answer to you and help out with the tent as a whole, but they absolutely may not touch the vessels of the sacred place or approach its altar. If they do, they and you will die. Also, an outsider may not approach you. This way, the whole congregation will be forever spared My destructive fury. 6 So I hereby appoint, as your assistants, your fellow Levites out of all of the Israelites. I give them to you as persons set apart for Me to do what is necessary for the maintenance of this congregation tent. 7 That way, you and your sons will be free to carefully attend the altar and My dwelling place behind the veil, which is forbidden to everyone else. Think of it as a kind of gift for the whole people, since it is fatal for anyone else to approach My sacred space.
Since the Levitical tribe inherits God Himself rather than a territory of land that they can farm and have for livestock, they are given a portion of the meat, grain, and drink offerings offered up by the people.
Eternal One (continuing to Aaron): 8 As for you in particular, everything people give to Me for all time, I put you in charge of and give to you and your sons as a priestly portion as a perpetual decree. 9 When anything the people give as an offering to Me isn’t burnt in its entirety, you will keep it—as the most holy items from the grain offerings, the sin or guilt offerings. All of this is most sacred to you and your sons. 10 While recognizing its holiness, you and every Levite male should go ahead and eat it in the most holy place. 11 Also, I am giving as a perpetual decree to you, your sons and daughters, too, whatever people raise up in offering to Me. Whoever is ritually pure from your house may eat from those offerings. 12 That includes, of course, the very best items—oil, wine, grain, and produce. Whatever people bring by way of offerings to Me, I give to you. 13-14 The first of the harvest and anything which is set aside for Me shall be yours; any in your family can eat from it, so long as he or she is ritually pure. 15-16 Likewise, the firstborn of men or animals, which are of course Mine, I hereby pass on to you. For the firstborn sons and ritually unclean animals should not be sacrificed; rather the people should simply pay five coins (calculated as the value of a one-month-old), each worth the two ounces (according to the sanctuary standard). 17 As for the other animals, the firstborn of a cow, a sheep, or a goat, you shall carry through on their sacrifice. They are indeed holy to Me. Make sure to throw some of their blood on the altar and incinerate their fat because it is to Me a soothing aroma. 18 You can have the meat itself, though, just as you get to have the breast of an uplifted offering and the right thigh too. 19 Everything sanctified and offered by the Israelites to Me, I am giving to you and your sons and your daughters as a perpetual decree. This is a binding agreement for all time—a covenant of salt, made in the presence of Me and preserved for you and your descendants after you.
20 (continuing to Aaron) And you’ll need these things because you are not allowed to own land or any part of it in the place I’ve promised. Rather, I am your portion and possession among the Israelites. 21-24 Your family, the Levites, shall not have any property, but they shall have what the Israelites bring to My tent as a tenth portion. Because the Levites alone can approach the congregation tent without dying and must do so to perform the necessary maintenance, but have no land of their own, they get to keep a tenth of the Israelites’ offerings.
25 (to Moses) 26 Tell the Levites that they should set aside a tenth portion of what they get from the Israelites’ sacrifices to give back to Me. In other words, they must give a tenth offering of the tenth offering given to them from the people of Israel. 27 Tell them, “This portion will be counted as your gift to Me, as if it is all the grain harvested and threshed and all the wine pressed and decanted. 28 In this way, you will be making an offering to Me from what you received from the Israelites (though you’ll do so by entrusting this tenth portion to the priest Aaron). 29 Out of everything you get, you should set aside the very best as a holy portion to Me. 30 After this, what’s left is absolutely yours, as if it is all the grain harvested and threshed and all the wine pressed and decanted. 31 You can eat and drink it anywhere—you and your whole household—because it’s what you’ve earned by working on behalf of the congregation tent. 32 After you’ve given up that superior portion, you may do with the rest as you wish. Just be careful that you treat the holy portion, what was set aside for Me by the Israelites, with utmost respect; or else you’ll die.”
19 The Eternal One told Moses and Aaron about purity rituals.
Eternal One: 2 I want to remind you about a decree of instruction by My command: “When they need to make a sin offering, instruct the Israelites to bring a young female cow, red in color, that is perfect in every visible way and has never worked. 3 Hand it over to the priest, Eleazar. He will then oversee its slaughter outside the camp, 4 dip his finger in the blood, splatter the blood seven times in the direction of the congregation tent’s opening, 5 and make sure that the carcass is burned, every bit of it—hide, flesh, blood, and dung. 6 While the cow burns, the priest will throw onto the fire some aromatic woods—cedar and hyssop—bound together by scarlet thread. 7-8 Afterward, the priest should carefully wash himself and his clothes; then he can reenter the camp. Likewise the one who burns the fire should also wash himself and his clothes. But recognize that they are ritually impure until that evening. 9-10 Someone else, someone ritually pure, should collect the ashes that remain from the completely burnt offering and put them all in a ritually pure place outside the boundaries of the camp. Then that person, too, should wash his clothes and understand he is ritually impure until evening. The ashes will be used to make a cleansing solution for the Israelites. This is a sin offering.
Remember and observe this perpetual statute concerning ritual contamination and cleansing, which applies to the foreigner who lives among you as well as to all native Israelites: 11 Anyone who touches a dead human body will be considered impure for a week. 12 Midweek and at the end, on the third and seventh days, he will use the burnt offering ashes dissolved in water to purify himself. If he fails to do so, he will not be pure. 13 This is a serious business, for everyone who comes into contact with a human corpse must purify himself like this. Otherwise, he pollutes My tent and so must be banished from Israel. If he has not been doused with the special cleansing water, his impurity still clings to him. He is impure.
14 Now if someone dies indoors, then everyone entering or inside the tent will be impure for the full seven days. 15 Not only that, but any cup, jar, or bowl that is open or didn’t otherwise have a cover attached when that person died will also be impure. 16 Out in the countryside, the same general rule applies. If someone happens to touch a person either killed outright or who simply died naturally, or if he touches a single human bone or a whole gravesite, he shall be impure for the week. 17 For such a person, take some of the aforesaid ashes mixed in a container with running water. 18 A person who is ritually pure should then dip a hyssop branch into the water and splash some water on the contaminated home—and on all the things in it and the people, too—or on the person who touched a corpse or some part of a dead person. 19 The ritually pure person must do this for the impure individual on the third and seventh days. Then he must purify himself, washing his body and clothes in water, so that he’s pure when it becomes evening on the seventh day.
20 Those who don’t so purify themselves shall be cast out of the community because they have scorned and polluted My holy place. Since the cleansing water hasn’t been splashed on them, they are impure. 21 This is a perpetual decree. The person who sprinkles the water and the one who touches the water for impurity also needs to wash his clothes after handling the cleansing water and will be ritually impure until evening. 22 Everything any impure person touches will be impure and make others who touch it impure, too, until evening.
20 After the Israelites, the whole group of them, journeyed into the Zin Wilderness during the first month, they set up camp in Kadesh. And it was there that Miriam died and was buried.
2 They ran out of water and again blamed their leaders, Moses and Aaron.
Israelites (arguing with Moses): 3 It would have been so much better if we had simply died along with the rest of our relatives, Korah, Abiram, and Dathan, right in front of the Eternal One.[a] 4-5 Why in the world would you drag us, the Eternal’s own group, out of Egypt into this wilderness where we’ll soon die and our livestock too? And there aren’t any grains, figs, grapes, or pomegranates, and there isn’t even any water!
Will these people never learn? But why should they be any different than the rest of us? We all tend to forget God’s provision, and we focus on the challenge before us. God has been leading them through a region full of challenges. You would think that after 40 years of daily provision from God in the wilderness these people would quit fearing the worst, especially since they have already gone through this very same experience once before—when they came out of Egypt in Exodus 17. Unfortunately, Moses doesn’t follow God’s instruction just as it is delivered to him, so he, too, is unfaithful. Instead of “provision” or “water-of-plenty,” the place is known as Meribah (“rebellion”). They are to remember their lack of faith and their active rebellion against God their savior every time they mention this place.
6 After hearing them out, Moses and Aaron walked away. At the congregation tent’s opening, they collapsed to the ground, interceding for the people. Then and there, the Eternal’s glory shone for them to see, 7 and He spoke to Moses.
Eternal One: 8 You and Aaron grab the staff before the covenant chest, gather the whole group so that all the people can see and hear you, and speak to the rock. Tell it to release its water for them to use. In this way, you’ll get water from the rock for everyone to drink, including all the animals.
9 So Moses did that. He took the staff just as God told him to do. 10 Then he and his brother gathered all the people in front of the rock.
Moses (to the Israelites): Listen up, you rebellious lot. Should we get water for you from this rock?
11 And as he spoke, Moses raised his hand and hit the rock—once, twice—and immediately the water came gushing out. All drank their fill, people and animals alike. 12 But the Eternal One scolded Moses and Aaron for their actions.
Eternal One: Because you didn’t trust Me and treat Me as holy before the Israelites, you will not lead this group into the land I have given them.
13 Because at this spot the Israelites rebelled against the Eternal and the display of His holiness, the water here is called Meribah, which means “rebellion.”
14 Also while in Kadesh, Moses sent a message to the Edomite king.
Kadesh (“holy”) is the place where God was not treated in a holy manner by the Israelites, including Moses and Aaron. And neither do Israel’s ancient relatives from Esau, the Edomites, who shared a common ancestor with Israel—Isaac.
Moses’ Message (to the king of Edom): Greetings from your brother, Israel. You’ve heard how hard these past years have been for us; 15 how in the midst of famine, our ancestors journeyed down into Egypt; and how after settling there a long while, the Egyptians began to treat our ancestors and then us harshly. 16 The Eternal heard and answered our pitiful cry, actually sent a messenger and led us out of Egypt. Now here we are in Kadesh, right at the border of your country. 17 Would you please grant us permission to cross through? I promise that we won’t take anything from your seeded farmland or cultivated countryside. Nor will we drink from your wells. We will stick to the main road, the king’s highway, and not step off it either to the right or left until we’re well past your country’s limits.
Edom’s Message: 18 No. If you so much as put a foot in our territory, we’ll attack you.
Israelites’ Message: 19 But we will keep strictly to the highway and pay you if any of us or any of our animals drink any water, only let us pass through.
Edom’s Message: 20 Absolutely not.
At that point, the Edomites indeed came out in force, fully armed, against the Israelites. 21 This response proved there was no negotiating with Edom for passage, so the Israelites turned to go another direction.
22-23 The whole Israelite community packed up and left Kadesh. They journeyed to the edge of Edomite territory, to Mount Hor, specifically.
Eternal One (to Moses and Aaron): 24 Because you two didn’t follow My orders back at the waters of Meribah, it is time for Aaron to die and be with his ancestors. 25 So bring Aaron, along with the son who will be his successor, Eleazar, up to Mount Hor. 26 There, you shall strip Aaron of his priestly garments that distinguish him as the priest of priests and put them on Eleazar. There, Aaron will join his ancestors in death.
27 With a heavy heart, Moses did just as the Eternal One had instructed. These brothers, now old, slowly made their way up Mount Hor while the whole community watched. 28 When they reached the top, Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly robes and put them on Aaron’s son, Eleazar. And Aaron died there. Then Moses and Eleazar went back down the mountain. 29 Understanding that Aaron was dead, the family of Israel wept for 30 days.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.