² And they stood before Moses, before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all the congregation, by the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting, saying:

^8 (A)“If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the ^(B)place which the Lord your God chooses. ⁹ And ^(C)you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and ^(D)to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; ^(E)they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you.

³³ And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. ³⁴ They put him ^(A)under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him.

¹⁹ Listen now to my voice; I will give you ^[a]counsel, and God will be with you: Stand ^(A)before God for the people, so that you may ^(B)bring the difficulties to God. ²⁰ And you shall ^(C)teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and ^(D)the work they must do. ²¹ Moreover you shall select from all the people ^(E)able men, such as ^(F)fear God, ^(G)men of truth, ^(H)hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. ²² And let them judge the people at all times. ^(I)Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for ^(J)they will bear the burden with you. ²³ If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their ^(K)place in peace.”

²⁴ So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. ²⁵ And ^(L)Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people: rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. ²⁶ So they judged the people at all times; the ^(M)hard^[b] cases they brought to Moses, but they judged every small case themselves.

¹³ And so it was, on the next day, that Moses ^(A)sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening. ¹⁴ So when Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, “What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone ^[a]sit, and all the people stand before you from morning until evening?”