Chronological

14 And all the congregation cried out with a loud voice, and [they] wept that night.

² All the Israelites grumbled and deplored their situation, accusing Moses and Aaron, to whom the whole congregation said, Would that we had died in Egypt! Or that we had died in this wilderness!

³ Why does the Lord bring us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and little ones will be a prey. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?^(A)

⁴ And they said one to another, Let us choose a captain and return to Egypt.

⁵ Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of Israelites.

⁶ And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among the scouts who had searched the land, rent their clothes,

⁷ And they said to all the company of Israelites, The land through which we passed as scouts is an exceedingly good land.

⁸ If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁹ Only do not rebel against the Lord, neither fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their defense and the shadow [of protection] is removed from over them, but the Lord is with us. Fear them not.

¹⁰ But all the congregation said to stone [Joshua and Caleb] with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the Tent of Meeting before all the Israelites.

¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people provoke (spurn, despise) Me? And how long will it be before they believe Me [trusting in, relying on, clinging to Me], for all the signs which I have performed among them?

¹² I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and will make of you [Moses] a nation greater and mightier than they.

¹³ But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for You brought up this people in Your might from among them.

¹⁴ And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are in the midst of this people [of Israel], that You, Lord, are seen face to face, and that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵ Now if You kill all this people as one man, then the nations that have heard Your fame will say,

¹⁶ Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which He swore to give to them, therefore He has slain them in the wilderness.

¹⁷ And now, I pray You, let the power of my Lord be great, as You have promised, saying,

¹⁸ The Lord is long-suffering and slow to anger, and abundant in mercy and loving-kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth generation.^(B)

¹⁹ Pardon, I pray You, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your mercy and loving-kindness, just as You have forgiven [them] from Egypt until now.

²⁰ And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word.

²¹ But truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,^(C)

²² Because all those men who have seen My glory and My [miraculous] signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tested and proved Me these ten times and have not heeded My voice,

²³ Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to give to their fathers; nor shall any who provoked (spurned, despised) Me see it.^(D)

²⁴ But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

²⁵ Now because the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.

²⁶ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁷ How long will this evil congregation murmur against Me? I have heard the complaints the Israelites murmur against Me.

²⁸ Tell them, As I live, says the Lord, what you have said in My hearing I will do to you:

²⁹ Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness—of all who were numbered of you, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against Me,^(E)

³⁰ Surely none shall come into the land in which I swore to make you dwell, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³¹ But your little ones whom you said would be a prey, them will I bring in and they shall know the land which you have despised and rejected.

³² But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

³³ And your children shall be wanderers and shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and shall suffer for your whoredoms (your infidelity to your espoused God), until your corpses are consumed in the wilderness.

³⁴ After the number of the days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], even forty days, for each day a year shall you bear and suffer for your iniquities, even for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement].

³⁵ I the Lord have spoken; surely this will I do to all this evil congregation who is gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed [by war, disease, plagues], and here they shall die.^(F)

³⁶ And the men whom Moses sent to search the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble and complain against him by bringing back a slanderous report of the land,

³⁷ Even those men who brought the evil report of the land died by a plague before the Lord.^(G)

³⁸ But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among the men who went to search the land, lived still.

³⁹ Moses told [the Lord’s] words to all the Israelites, and [they] mourned greatly.

⁴⁰ And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, Behold, we are here, and we intend to go up to the place which the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.

⁴¹ But Moses said, Why now do you transgress the command of the Lord [to turn back by way of the Red Sea], since it will not succeed?

⁴² Go not up, for the Lord is not among you, that you be not struck down before your enemies.

⁴³ For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from following after the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you.

⁴⁴ But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country; however, neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp.

⁴⁵ Then the Amalekites came down and the Canaanites who dwelt in that hill country and smote the Israelites and beat them back, even as far as Hormah.

15 And the Lord said to Moses,

² Say to the Israelites, When you come into the land where you are to live, which I am giving you,

³ And will make an offering by fire to the Lord from the herd or from the flock, a burnt offering or a sacrifice to fulfill a special vow or as a freewill offering or in your set feasts, to make a pleasant and soothing fragrance to the Lord,

⁴ Then shall he who brings his offering to the Lord bring a cereal offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a fourth of a hin of oil.

⁵ And a fourth of a hin of wine for the drink offering you shall prepare with the burnt offering or for the sacrifice, for each lamb.

⁶ Or for a ram you shall prepare for a cereal offering two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a third of a hin of oil.

⁷ And for the drink offering you shall offer a third of a hin of wine, for a sweet and pleasing odor to the Lord.

⁸ And when you prepare a bull for a burnt offering or for a sacrifice, in fulfilling a special vow or peace offering to the Lord,

⁹ Then shall one offer with the bull a cereal offering of three tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with half a hin of oil.

¹⁰ And you shall bring for the drink offering half a hin of wine for an offering made by fire, of a pleasant and soothing fragrance to the Lord.

¹¹ Thus shall it be done for each bull or for each ram, or for each of the male lambs or of the kids.

¹² According to the number that you shall prepare, so shall you do to everyone according to their number.

¹³ All who are native-born shall do these things in this way in bringing an offering made by fire of a sweet and pleasant odor to the Lord.

¹⁴ And if a stranger sojourns with you or whoever may be among you throughout your generations, and he wishes to offer an offering made by fire, of a pleasing and soothing fragrance to the Lord, as you do, so shall he do.

¹⁵ There shall be one [and the same] statute [both] for you [of the congregation] and for the stranger who is a temporary resident with you, a statute forever throughout your generations: as you are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord.

¹⁶ One law and one ordinance shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.

¹⁷ And the Lord said to Moses,

¹⁸ Say to the Israelites, When you come into the land to which I am bringing you,

¹⁹ Then, when you eat of the food of the land, you shall set apart a portion for a gift to the Lord [called a heave or taken-out offering].

²⁰ You shall set apart a cake made of the first of your coarse meal as a gift [to the Lord]; as an offering set apart from the threshing floor, so shall you lift it out or heave it.

²¹ Of the first of your coarse meal you shall give to the Lord a portion for a gift throughout your generations [your heave or lifted-out offering].

²² When you have erred and have not observed all these commandments which the Lord has spoken to Moses,

²³ Even all that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, from the day that the Lord gave commandment and onward throughout your generations,

²⁴ Then it shall be, if it was done unwittingly or in error without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bull for a burnt offering, for a pleasant and soothing fragrance to the Lord, with its cereal offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat for a sin offering.

²⁵ And the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the Israelites, and they shall be forgiven, for it was an error and they have brought their offering, an offering made by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their error.

²⁶ And all the congregation of the Israelites shall be forgiven and the stranger who lives temporarily among them, because all the people were involved in the error.

²⁷ And if any person sins unknowingly or unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering.

²⁸ And the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who commits an error when he sins unknowingly or unintentionally, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven.

²⁹ You shall have one law for him who sins unknowingly or unintentionally, whether he is native born among the Israelites or a stranger who is sojourning among them.

³⁰ But the person who does anything [wrong] willfully and openly, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one reproaches, reviles, and blasphemes the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people [that the atonement made for them may not include him].

³¹ Because he has despised and rejected the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.

³² While the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man who was gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.

³³ Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation.

³⁴ They put him in custody, because it was not certain or clear what should be done to him.

³⁵ And the Lord said to Moses, The man shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

³⁶ And all the congregation brought him without the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.

³⁷ And the Lord said to Moses,

³⁸ Speak to the Israelites and bid them make fringes or tassels on the corners in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and put upon the fringe of the borders or upon the tassel of each corner a cord of blue.

³⁹ And it shall be to you a fringe or tassel that you may look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, that you may not spy out and follow after [the desires of] your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to follow and play the harlot [spiritually, if not physically],

⁴⁰ That you may 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.

Book Four

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

¹ Lord, You have been our dwelling place and our refuge in all generations [says Moses].

² Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed and given birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.

³ You turn man back to dust and corruption, and say, Return, O sons of the earthborn [to the earth]!

⁴ For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.^(A)

⁵ You carry away [these disobedient people, doomed to die within forty years] as with a flood; they are as a sleep [vague and forgotten as soon as they are gone]. In the morning they are like grass which grows up—

⁶ In the morning it flourishes and springs up; in the evening it is mown down and withers.

⁷ For we [the Israelites in the wilderness] are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled, overwhelmed, and frightened away.

⁸ Our iniquities, our secret heart and its sins [which we would so like to conceal even from ourselves], You have set in the [revealing] light of Your countenance.

⁹ For all our days [out here in this wilderness, says Moses] pass away in Your wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told [for we adults know we are doomed to die soon, without reaching Canaan].^(B)

¹⁰ The days of our years are ^[a]threescore years and ten (seventy years)—or even, if by reason of strength, fourscore years (eighty years); yet is their pride [in additional years] only labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away.

¹¹ Who knows the power of Your anger? [Who worthily connects this brevity of life with Your recognition of sin?] And Your wrath, who connects it with the reverent and worshipful fear that is due You?

¹² So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom.

¹³ Turn, O Lord [from Your fierce anger]! How long—? Revoke Your sentence and be compassionate and at ease toward Your servants.

¹⁴ O satisfy us with Your mercy and loving-kindness in the morning [now, before we are older], that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

¹⁵ Make us glad in proportion to the days in which You have afflicted us and to the years in which we have suffered evil.

¹⁶ Let Your work [the signs of Your power] be revealed to Your servants, and Your [glorious] majesty to their children.

¹⁷ And let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands—yes, the work of our hands, confirm and establish it.