Numbers 12

Miriam and Aaron Oppose Moses

¹Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. ²And they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? oHas he not spoken through us also?” And pthe Lord heard it. ³Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. ⁴And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out. ⁵And qthe Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. ⁶And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him rin a vision; I speak with him sin a dream. ⁷Not so with tmy servant Moses. uHe is faithful in all my house. ⁸With him I speak vmouth to mouth, clearly, and not in wriddles, and he beholds xthe form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” ⁹And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.

¹⁰When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, yMiriam was zleprous,1 like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. ¹¹And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, ado not punish us2 because we have done foolishly and have sinned. ¹²Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother's womb.” ¹³And Moses cried to the Lord, “O God, please heal her—please.” ¹⁴But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but bspit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be cshut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.” ¹⁵So Miriam dwas shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. ¹⁶After that the people set out from eHazeroth, and camped in fthe wilderness of Paran.

Numbers 13

Spies Sent into Canaan

¹The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²g“Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.” ³So Moses sent them from hthe wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel. ⁴And these were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur; ⁵from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori; ⁶ifrom the tribe of Judah, jCaleb the son of Jephunneh; ⁷from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph; ⁸from the tribe of Ephraim, kHoshea the son of Nun; ⁹from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu; ¹⁰from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi; ¹¹from the tribe of Joseph (that is, from the tribe of Manasseh), Gaddi the son of Susi; ¹²from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli; ¹³from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael; ¹⁴from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi; ¹⁵from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi. ¹⁶These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called kHoshea the son of Nun Joshua.

¹⁷Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up into lthe Negeb and go up into mthe hill country, ¹⁸and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, ¹⁹and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, ²⁰and whether the land is nrich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. oBe of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes.

²¹So they went up and spied out the land pfrom the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, qnear Lebo-hamath. ²²They went up into mthe Negeb and came to rHebron. sAhiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the tdescendants of Anak, were there. (uHebron was built seven years before uZoan in Egypt.) ²³And vthey came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴That place was called the Valley of Eshcol,1 because of the cluster that the people of Israel cut down from there.

Report of the Spies

²⁵At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at wKadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It xflows with milk and honey, yand this is its fruit. ²⁸zHowever, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹aThe Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. bAnd the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

³⁰But cCaleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” ³¹dThen the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” ³²So ethey brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and fall the people that we saw in it are of great height. ³³And there we saw the gNephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the gNephilim), and we seemed to ourselves hlike grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

Why Should I Fear in Times of Trouble?

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of fthe Sons of Korah.

¹gHear this, all peoples!

Give ear, all inhabitants of the world,

²hboth low and high,

rich and poor together!

³My mouth shall speak iwisdom;

the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.

⁴I will incline my ear to ja proverb;

I will solve my kriddle to the music of the lyre.

⁵lWhy should I fear in mtimes of trouble,

when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me,

⁶those who ntrust in their wealth

and boast of the abundance of their riches?

⁷Truly no man ocan ransom another,

or pgive to God qthe price of his life,

⁸for rthe ransom of their life is costly

and can never suffice,

⁹that he should live on forever

and snever see the pit.

¹⁰For he sees tthat even the wise die;

uthe fool and the stupid alike must perish

and vleave their wealth to others.

¹¹Their wgraves are their homes forever,1

their dwelling places xto all generations,

though they ycalled lands by their own names.

¹²Man in his pomp zwill not remain;

ahe is like the beasts that perish.

¹³This is the path of those who have bfoolish confidence;

yet after them people approve of their boasts.2 Selah

¹⁴Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;

death shall be their shepherd,

and the upright cshall rule over them in the morning.

dTheir form shall be consumed ein Sheol, with no place to dwell.

¹⁵But God will fransom my soul from the power of Sheol,

for he will greceive me. Selah

¹⁶Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,

when the glory of his house increases.

¹⁷hFor when he dies he will icarry nothing away;

his glory will not go down after him.

¹⁸For though, while he lives, he counts himself jblessed

—and though you get praise when you do well for yourself—

¹⁹his soul will kgo to the generation of his fathers,

who will never again lsee light.

²⁰mMan in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.

The Mountain of the Lord

¹The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

²lIt shall come to pass in the latter days

that mthe mountain of the house of the Lord

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be lifted up above the hills;

and nall the nations shall flow to it,

³and omany peoples shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For pout of Zion shall go forth the law,1

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

⁴He shall judge between the nations,

and shall decide disputes for many peoples;

qand they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

rnation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore.

⁵O house of Jacob,

come, let us walk

in sthe light of the Lord.

The Day of the Lord

⁶For you have rejected your people,

the house of Jacob,

because they are full of things tfrom the east

and uof fortune-tellers vlike the Philistines,

and they wstrike hands with the children of foreigners.

⁷Their land is xfilled with silver and gold,

and there is no end to their treasures;

their land is yfilled with horses,

and there is no end to their chariots.

⁸Their land is zfilled with idols;

they bow down to athe work of their hands,

to what their own fingers have made.

⁹So man bis humbled,

and each one bis brought low—

do not forgive them!

¹⁰cEnter into the rock

and hide in the dust

dfrom before the terror of the Lord,

and from the splendor of his majesty.

¹¹eThe haughty looks of man shall be brought low,

and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,

and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

¹²fFor the Lord of hosts has a day

against all that is proud and lofty,

against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low;

¹³against all the gcedars of Lebanon,

lofty and lifted up;

and against all the hoaks of Bashan;

¹⁴against all ithe lofty mountains,

and against all the uplifted hills;

¹⁵against every high tower,

and against every fortified wall;

¹⁶against all jthe ships of Tarshish,

and against all the beautiful craft.

¹⁷kAnd the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,

and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,

and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

¹⁸lAnd the idols shall utterly pass away.

¹⁹mAnd people shall enter the caves of the rocks

and the holes of the ground,2

from before the terror of the Lord,

and from the splendor of his majesty,

nwhen he rises to terrify the earth.

²⁰In that day omankind will cast away

their idols of silver and their idols of gold,

which they made for themselves to worship,

to the moles and to the pbats,

²¹mto enter the caverns of the rocks

and the clefts of the cliffs,

from before the terror of the Lord,

and from the splendor of his majesty,

nwhen he rises to terrify the earth.

²²qStop regarding man

rin whose nostrils is breath,

for of what account is he?

Christ's Sacrifice Once for All

¹For since the law has but va shadow wof the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, xit can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. ²Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? ³But yin these sacrifices zthere is a reminder of sins every year. ⁴For ait is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

⁵Consequently, bwhen Christ1 came into the world, he said,

c“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body have you prepared for me;

⁶in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

⁷Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

⁸When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in csacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), ⁹then he added, d“Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰And by that will ewe have been sanctified through the offering of fthe body of Jesus Christ gonce for all.

¹¹And every priest stands hdaily at his service, ioffering repeatedly the same sacrifices, jwhich can never take away sins. ¹²But when Christ2 had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he ksat down at the right hand of God, ¹³waiting from that time luntil his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. ¹⁴For by a single offering mhe has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

¹⁵And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

¹⁶n“This is the covenant that I will make with them

after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws on their hearts,

and write them on their minds,”

¹⁷then he adds,

o“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

¹⁸Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

The Full Assurance of Faith

¹⁹pTherefore, brothers,3 since we have confidence to enter qthe holy places by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by rthe new and living way that he opened for us through sthe curtain, that is, through his flesh, ²¹and since we have ta great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts usprinkled clean vfrom an evil conscience and our bodies wwashed with pure water. ²³xLet us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for yhe who promised is faithful. ²⁴And zlet us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵anot neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and ball the more as you see cthe Day drawing near.

²⁶For dif we go on sinning deliberately eafter receiving the knowledge of the truth, fthere no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷gbut a fearful expectation of judgment, and ha fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. ²⁸iAnyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy jon the evidence of two or three witnesses. ²⁹How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one kwho has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned lthe blood of the covenant mby which he was sanctified, and has noutraged the Spirit of grace? ³⁰For we know him who said, o“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, p“The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹qIt is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

³²But recall the former days when, after ryou were enlightened, you endured sa hard struggle with sufferings, ³³sometimes being tpublicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. ³⁴For uyou had compassion on those in prison, and vyou joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had wa better possession and an abiding one. ³⁵Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has xa great reward. ³⁶For yyou have need of endurance, so that zwhen you have done the will of God you may areceive what is promised. ³⁷For,

b“Yet a little while,

and cthe coming one will come and will not delay;

³⁸dbut my righteous one shall live by faith,

and if he shrinks back,

my soul has no pleasure in him.”

³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.