The Daughters of Zelophehad

¹Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah were the daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, son of Joseph.

²They went and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and the whole community at the entrance of the Tent of the Lord's presence and said,

³“Our father died in the wilderness without leaving any sons. He was not among the followers of Korah, who rebelled against the Lord; he died because of his own sin.

⁴Just because he had no sons, why should our father's name disappear from Israel? Give us property among our father's relatives.”

⁵Moses presented their case to the Lord,

⁶and the Lord said to him,

⁷“What the daughters of Zelophehad request is right; give them property among their father's relatives. Let his inheritance pass on to them.

⁸Tell the people of Israel that whenever a man dies without leaving a son, his daughter is to inherit his property.

⁹If he has no daughter, his brothers are to inherit it.

¹⁰If he has no brothers, his father's brothers are to inherit it.

¹¹If he has no brothers or uncles, then his nearest relative is to inherit it and hold it as his own property. The people of Israel are to observe this as a legal requirement, just as I, the Lord, have commanded you.”

Joshua Is Chosen as Successor to Moses

¹²The Lord said to Moses, “Go up the Abarim Mountains and look out over the land that I am giving to the Israelites.

¹³After you have seen it, you will die, as your brother Aaron did,

¹⁴because both of you rebelled against my command in the wilderness of Zin. When the whole community complained against me at Meribah, you refused to acknowledge my holy power before them.” (Meribah is the spring at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.)

¹⁵Moses prayed,

¹⁶“Lord God, source of all life, appoint, I pray, a man who can lead the people

¹⁷and can command them in battle, so that your community will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

¹⁸The Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a capable man, and place your hands on his head.

¹⁹Have him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the whole community, and there before them all proclaim him as your successor.

²⁰Give him some of your own authority, so that the whole community of Israel will obey him.

²¹He will depend on Eleazar the priest, who will learn my will by using the Urim and Thummim. In this way Eleazar will direct Joshua and the whole community of Israel in all their affairs.”

²²Moses did as the Lord had commanded him. He had Joshua stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole community.

²³As the Lord had commanded, Moses put his hands on Joshua's head and proclaimed him as his successor.

The Regular Offerings

¹The Lord commanded Moses

²to instruct the Israelites to present to God at the appointed times the required food offerings that are pleasing to him.

³These are the food offerings that are to be presented to the Lord: for the daily burnt offering, two one-year-old male lambs without any defects.

⁴Offer the first lamb in the morning, and the second in the evening,

⁵each with a grain offering of 2 pounds of flour, mixed with 2 pints of the best olive oil.

⁶This is the daily offering that is completely burned, which was first offered at Mount Sinai as a food offering, an odor pleasing to the Lord.

⁷As the wine offering with the first lamb, pour out at the altar 2 pints of wine.

⁸In the evening offer the second lamb in the same way as the morning offering, together with its wine offering. It also is a food offering, an odor pleasing to the Lord.

The Sabbath Offering

⁹On the Sabbath day offer two one-year-old male lambs without any defects, 4 pounds of flour mixed with olive oil as a grain offering, and the wine offering.

¹⁰This burnt offering is to be offered every Sabbath in addition to the daily offering with its wine offering.

The Offering on the First Day of the Month

¹¹Present a burnt offering to the Lord at the beginning of each month: two young bulls, one ram, seven one-year-old male lambs, all without any defects.

¹²As a grain offering, offer flour mixed with olive oil: with each bull, 6 pounds of flour; with the ram, 4 pounds;

¹³and with each lamb, 2 pounds. These burnt offerings are food offerings, an odor pleasing to the Lord.

¹⁴The proper wine offering is 4 pints of wine with each bull, 3 pints with the ram, and 2 pints with each lamb. This is the regulation for the burnt offering for the first day of each month throughout the year.

¹⁵And in addition to the daily burnt offering with its wine offering, offer one male goat as a sin offering.

The Offerings at the Festival of Unleavened Bread

¹⁶The Passover Festival in honor of the Lord is to be held on the fourteenth day of the first month.

¹⁷On the fifteenth day a religious festival begins which lasts seven days, during which only bread prepared without yeast is to be eaten.

¹⁸On the first day of the festival you are to gather for worship, and no work is to be done.

¹⁹Offer a burnt offering as a food offering to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven one-year-old male lambs, all without any defects.

²⁰Offer the proper grain offering of flour mixed with olive oil: 6 pounds with each bull, 4 pounds with the ram,

²¹and 2 pounds with each lamb.

²²Also offer one male goat as a sin offering, and in this way perform the ritual of purification for the people.

²³Offer these in addition to the regular morning burnt offering.

²⁴In the same way, for seven days offer to the Lord a food offering, an odor pleasing to him. Offer this in addition to the daily burnt offering and wine offering.

²⁵Meet for worship on the seventh day and do no work.

The Offerings at the Harvest Festival

²⁶On the first day of the Harvest Festival, when you present the offering of new grain to the Lord, you are to gather for worship, and no work is to be done.

²⁷Offer a burnt offering as an odor pleasing to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven one-year-old male lambs, all without any defects.

²⁸Offer the proper grain offering of flour mixed with olive oil: 6 pounds with each bull, 4 pounds with the ram,

²⁹and 2 pounds with each lamb.

³⁰Also offer one male goat as a sin offering, and in this way perform the ritual of purification for the people.

³¹Offer these and the wine offering in addition to the daily burnt offering and grain offering.

The Blessings of Obedience

¹“If you obey the Lord your God and faithfully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, he will make you greater than any other nation on earth.

²Obey the Lord your God and all these blessings will be yours:

³“The Lord will bless your towns and your fields.

⁴“The Lord will bless you with many children, with abundant crops, and with many cattle and sheep.

⁵“The Lord will bless your grain crops and the food you prepare from them.

⁶“The Lord will bless everything you do.

⁷“The Lord will defeat your enemies when they attack you. They will attack from one direction, but they will run from you in all directions.

⁸“The Lord your God will bless your work and fill your barns with grain. He will bless you in the land that he is giving you.

⁹“If you obey the Lord your God and do everything he commands, he will make you his own people, as he has promised.

¹⁰Then all the peoples on earth will see that the Lord has chosen you to be his own people, and they will be afraid of you.

¹¹The Lord will give you many children, many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he promised your ancestors to give you.

¹²He will send rain in season from his rich storehouse in the sky and bless all your work, so that you will lend to many nations, but you will not have to borrow from any.

¹³The Lord your God will make you the leader among the nations and not a follower; you will always prosper and never fail if you obey faithfully all his commands that I am giving you today.

¹⁴But you must never disobey them in any way, or worship and serve other gods.

The Consequences of Disobedience

¹⁵“But if you disobey the Lord your God and do not faithfully keep all his commands and laws that I am giving you today, all these evil things will happen to you:

¹⁶“The Lord will curse your towns and your fields.

¹⁷“The Lord will curse your grain crops and the food you prepare from them.

¹⁸“The Lord will curse you by giving you only a few children, poor crops, and few cattle and sheep.

¹⁹“The Lord will curse everything you do.

²⁰“If you do evil and reject the Lord, he will bring on you disaster, confusion, and trouble in everything you do, until you are quickly and completely destroyed.

²¹He will send disease after disease on you until there is not one of you left in the land that you are about to occupy.

²²The Lord will strike you with infectious diseases, with swelling and fever; he will send drought and scorching winds to destroy your crops. These disasters will be with you until you die.

²³No rain will fall, and your ground will become as hard as iron.

²⁴Instead of rain, the Lord will send down duststorms and sandstorms until you are destroyed.

²⁵“The Lord will give your enemies victory over you. You will attack them from one direction, but you will run from them in all directions, and all the people on earth will be terrified when they see what happens to you.

²⁶When you die, birds and wild animals will come and eat your bodies, and there will be no one to scare them off.

²⁷The Lord will send boils on you, as he did on the Egyptians. He will make your bodies break out with sores. You will be covered with scabs, and you will itch, but there will be no cure.

²⁸The Lord will make you lose your mind; he will strike you with blindness and confusion.

²⁹You will grope about in broad daylight like someone blind, and you will not be able to find your way. You will not prosper in anything you do. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to help you.

³⁰“You will be engaged to a young woman—but someone else will marry her. You will build a house—but never live in it. You will plant a vineyard—but never eat its grapes.

³¹Your cattle will be butchered before your very eyes, but you will not eat any of the meat. Your donkeys will be dragged away while you look on, and they will not be given back to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to help you.

³²Your sons and daughters will be given as slaves to foreigners while you look on. Every day you will strain your eyes, looking in vain for your children to return.

³³A foreign nation will take all the crops that you have worked so hard to grow, while you receive nothing but constant oppression and harsh treatment.

³⁴Your sufferings will make you lose your mind.

³⁵The Lord will cover your legs with incurable, painful sores; boils will cover you from head to foot.

³⁶“The Lord will take you and your king away to a foreign land, where neither you nor your ancestors ever lived before; there you will serve gods made of wood and stone.

³⁷In the countries to which the Lord will scatter you, the people will be shocked at what has happened to you; they will make fun of you and ridicule you.

³⁸“You will plant plenty of seed, but reap only a small harvest, because the locusts will eat your crops.

³⁹You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you will not gather their grapes or drink wine from them, because worms will eat the vines.

⁴⁰Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not have any olive oil, because the olives will drop off.

⁴¹You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, because they will be taken away as prisoners of war.

⁴²All your trees and crops will be devoured by insects.

⁴³“Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours.

⁴⁴They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers.

⁴⁵“All these disasters will come on you, and they will be with you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep all the laws that he gave you.

⁴⁶They will be the evidence of God's judgment on you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷The Lord blessed you in every way, but you would not serve him with glad and joyful hearts.

⁴⁸So then, you will serve the enemies that the Lord is going to send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, and naked—in need of everything. The Lord will oppress you harshly until you are destroyed.

⁴⁹The Lord will bring against you a nation from the ends of the earth, a nation whose language you do not know. They will swoop down on you like an eagle.

⁵⁰They will be ruthless and show no mercy to anyone, young or old.

⁵¹They will eat your livestock and your crops, and you will starve to death. They will not leave you any grain, wine, olive oil, cattle, or sheep; and you will die.

⁵²They will attack every town in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and the high, fortified walls in which you trust will fall.

⁵³“When your enemies are besieging your towns, you will become so desperate for food that you will even eat the children that the Lord your God has given you.

^54-55Even the most refined man of noble birth will become so desperate during the siege that he will eat some of his own children because he has no other food. He will not even give any to his brother or to the wife he loves or to any of his children who are left.

^56-57Even the most refined woman of noble birth, so rich that she has never had to walk anywhere, will behave in the same way. When the enemy besieges her town, she will become so desperate for food that she will secretly eat her newborn child and the afterbirth as well. She will not share them with the husband she loves or with any of her children.

⁵⁸“If you do not obey faithfully all of God's teachings that are written in this book and if you do not honor the wonderful and awesome name of the Lord your God,

⁵⁹he will send on you and on your descendants incurable diseases and horrible epidemics that can never be stopped.

⁶⁰He will bring on you once again all the dreadful diseases you experienced in Egypt, and you will never recover.

⁶¹He will also send all kinds of diseases and epidemics that are not mentioned in this book of God's laws and teachings, and you will be destroyed.

⁶²Although you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, only a few of you will survive, because you did not obey the Lord your God.

⁶³Just as the Lord took delight in making you prosper and in making you increase in number, so he will take delight in destroying you and in bringing ruin on you. You will be uprooted from the land that you are about to occupy.

⁶⁴“The Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve gods made of wood and stone, gods that neither you nor your ancestors have ever worshiped before.

⁶⁵You will find no peace anywhere, no place to call your own; the Lord will overwhelm you with anxiety, hopelessness, and despair.

⁶⁶Your life will always be in danger. Day and night you will be filled with terror, and you will live in constant fear of death.

⁶⁷Your hearts will pound with fear at everything you see. Every morning you will wish for evening; every evening you will wish for morning.

⁶⁸The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, even though he said that you would never have to go there again. There you will try to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will want to buy you.”

The Happiness of a Good Person

¹Praise the Lord! Happy is the person who honors the Lord, who takes pleasure in obeying his commands.

²The good man's children will be powerful in the land; his descendants will be blessed.

³His family will be wealthy and rich, and he will be prosperous forever.

⁴Light shines in the darkness for good people, for those who are merciful, kind, and just.

⁵Happy is the person who is generous with his loans, who runs his business honestly.

⁶A good person will never fail; he will always be remembered.

⁷He is not afraid of receiving bad news; his faith is strong, and he trusts in the Lord.

⁸He is not worried or afraid; he is certain to see his enemies defeated.

⁹He gives generously to the needy, and his kindness never fails; he will be powerful and respected.

¹⁰The wicked see this and are angry; they glare in hate and disappear; their hopes are gone forever.