Miriam Is Punished

¹Moses had married a Cushite woman, and Miriam and Aaron criticized him for it.

²They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn't he also spoken through us?” The Lord heard what they said.

³(Moses was a humble man, more humble than anyone else on earth.)

⁴Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “I want the three of you to come out to the Tent of my presence.” They went,

⁵and the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, stood at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron! Miriam!” The two of them stepped forward,

⁶and the Lord said, “Now hear what I have to say! When there are prophets among you, I reveal myself to them in visions and speak to them in dreams.

⁷It is different when I speak with my servant Moses; I have put him in charge of all my people Israel.

⁸So I speak to him face-to-face, clearly and not in riddles; he has even seen my form! How dare you speak against my servant Moses?”

⁹The Lord was angry with them; and so as he departed

¹⁰and the cloud left the Tent, Miriam's skin was suddenly covered with a dreaded disease and turned as white as snow. When Aaron looked at her and saw that she was covered with the disease,

¹¹he said to Moses, “Please, sir, do not make us suffer this punishment for our foolish sin.

¹²Don't let her become like something born dead with half its flesh eaten away.”

¹³So Moses cried out to the Lord, “O God, heal her!”

¹⁴The Lord answered, “If her father had spit in her face, she would have to bear her disgrace for seven days. So let her be shut out of the camp for a week, and after that she can be brought back in.”

¹⁵Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until she was brought back in.

¹⁶Then they left Hazeroth and set up camp in the wilderness of Paran.

The Spies

¹The Lord said to Moses,

²“Choose one of the leaders from each of the twelve tribes and send them as spies to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites.”

^3-15Moses obeyed and from the wilderness of Paran he sent out leaders, as follows: Tribe Leader Reuben Shammua son of Zaccur Simeon Shaphat son of Hori Judah Caleb son of Jephunneh Issachar Igal son of Joseph Ephraim Hoshea son of Nun Benjamin Palti son of Raphu Zebulun Gaddiel son of Sodi Manasseh Gaddi son of Susi Dan Ammiel son of Gemalli Asher Sethur son of Michael Naphtali Nahbi son of Vophsi Gad Geuel son of Machi

¹⁶These are the spies Moses sent to explore the land. He changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Joshua.

¹⁷When Moses sent them out, he said to them, “Go north from here into the southern part of the land of Canaan and then on into the hill country.

¹⁸Find out what kind of country it is, how many people live there, and how strong they are.

¹⁹Find out whether the land is good or bad and whether the people live in open towns or in fortified cities.

²⁰Find out whether the soil is fertile and whether the land is wooded. And be sure to bring back some of the fruit that grows there.” (It was the season when grapes were beginning to ripen.)

²¹So the men went north and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin in the south all the way to Rehob, near Hamath Pass in the north.

²²They went first into the southern part of the land and came to Hebron, where the clans of Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of a race of giants called the Anakim, lived. (Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

²³They came to Eshcol Valley, and there they cut off a branch which had one bunch of grapes on it so heavy that it took two men to carry it on a pole between them. They also brought back some pomegranates and figs.

²⁴(That place was named Eshcol Valley because of the bunch of grapes the Israelites cut off there.)

²⁵After exploring the land for forty days, the spies returned

²⁶to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had brought.

²⁷They told Moses, “We explored the land and found it to be rich and fertile; and here is some of its fruit.

²⁸But the people who live there are powerful, and their cities are very large and well fortified. Even worse, we saw the descendants of the giants there.

²⁹Amalekites live in the southern part of the land; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and Canaanites live by the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan River.”

³⁰Caleb silenced the people who were complaining against Moses, and said, “We should attack now and take the land; we are strong enough to conquer it.”

³¹But the men who had gone with Caleb said, “No, we are not strong enough to attack them; the people there are more powerful than we are.”

³²So they spread a false report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, “That land doesn't even produce enough to feed the people who live there. Everyone we saw was very tall,

³³and we even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must have looked to them.”

The Lord's Greatness

¹“Love the Lord your God and always obey all his laws.

²Remember today what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with him. It was you, not your children, who had these experiences. You saw the Lord's greatness, his power, his might,

³and his miracles. You saw what he did to the king of Egypt and to his entire country.

⁴You saw how the Lord completely wiped out the Egyptian army, along with their horses and chariots, by drowning them in the Red Sea when they were pursuing you.

⁵You know what the Lord did for you in the desert before you arrived here.

⁶You recall what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben. In the sight of everyone the earth opened up and swallowed them, along with their families, their tents, and all their servants and animals.

⁷Yes, you are the ones who have seen all these great things that the Lord has done.

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸“Obey everything that I have commanded you today. Then you will be able to cross the river and occupy the land that you are about to enter.

⁹And you will live a long time in the rich and fertile land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors and their descendants.

¹⁰The land that you are about to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted grain, you had to work hard to irrigate the fields;

¹¹but the land that you are about to enter is a land of mountains and valleys, a land watered by rain.

¹²The Lord your God takes care of this land and watches over it throughout the year.

¹³“So then, obey the commands that I have given you today; love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart.

¹⁴If you do, he will send rain on your land when it is needed, in the autumn and in the spring, so that there will be grain, wine, and olive oil for you,

¹⁵and grass for your livestock. You will have all the food you want.

¹⁶Do not let yourselves be led away from the Lord to worship and serve other gods.

¹⁷If you do, the Lord will become angry with you. He will hold back the rain, and your ground will become too dry for crops to grow. Then you will soon die there, even though it is a good land that he is giving you.

¹⁸“Remember these commands and cherish them. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder.

¹⁹Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working.

²⁰Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.

²¹Then you and your children will live a long time in the land that the Lord your God promised to give to your ancestors. You will live there as long as there is a sky above the earth.

²²“Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you: Love the Lord your God, do everything he commands, and be faithful to him.

²³Then he will drive out all those nations as you advance, and you will occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you.

²⁴All the ground that you march over will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

²⁵Wherever you go in that land, the Lord your God will make the people fear you, as he has promised, and no one will be able to stop you.

²⁶“Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse—

²⁷a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today;

²⁸but a curse, if you disobey these commands and turn away to worship other gods that you have never worshiped before.

²⁹When the Lord brings you into the land that you are going to occupy, you are to proclaim the blessing from Mount Gerizim and the curse from Mount Ebal.

³⁰(These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley. They are toward the west, not far from the sacred trees of Moreh near the town of Gilgal.)

³¹You are about to cross the Jordan River and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it and settle there,

³²be sure to obey all the laws that I am giving you today.

God the Judge of All

¹Lord, you are a God who punishes; reveal your anger!

²You are the judge of us all; rise and give the proud what they deserve!

³How much longer will the wicked be glad? How much longer, Lord?

⁴How much longer will criminals be proud and boast about their crimes?

⁵They crush your people, Lord; they oppress those who belong to you.

⁶They kill widows and orphans, and murder the strangers who live in our land.

⁷They say, “The Lord does not see us; the God of Israel does not notice.”

⁸My people, how can you be such stupid fools? When will you ever learn?

⁹God made our ears—can't he hear? He made our eyes—can't he see?

¹⁰He scolds the nations—won't he punish them? He is the teacher of us all—hasn't he any knowledge?

¹¹The Lord knows what we think; he knows how senseless our reasoning is.

¹²Lord, how happy are those you instruct, the ones to whom you teach your law!

¹³You give them rest from days of trouble until a pit is dug to trap the wicked.

¹⁴The Lord will not abandon his people; he will not desert those who belong to him.

¹⁵Justice will again be found in the courts, and all righteous people will support it.

¹⁶Who stood up for me against the wicked? Who took my side against the evildoers?

¹⁷If the Lord had not helped me, I would have gone quickly to the land of silence.

¹⁸I said, “I am falling”; but your constant love, O Lord, held me up.

¹⁹Whenever I am anxious and worried, you comfort me and make me glad.

²⁰You have nothing to do with corrupt judges, who make injustice legal,

²¹who plot against good people and sentence the innocent to death.

²²But the Lord defends me; my God protects me.

²³He will punish them for their wickedness and destroy them for their sins; the Lord our God will destroy them.