Old/New Testament
Chapter 17
Aaron’s Staff.[a] 1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and take one staff from the leaders of each of the ancestral tribes, and write each of their names on the twelve staffs. 3 Write Aaron’s name upon the staff of Levi, for there is one staff for the leader of each of the ancestral tribes. 4 You are to lay them in the tent of meeting in front of the Testimony where I meet with you. 5 The staff of the man whom I choose will blossom. Thus I will bring an end to the grumblings of the people of Israel against you.” 6 Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and all of the leaders gave him one staff each, one for each of the twelve ancestral tribes, and the staff of Aaron was among the other staffs. 7 So Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of meeting.
8 The next day, Moses went into the tent of meeting. The staff of Aaron of the tribe of Levi had blossomed and brought forth buds.[b] It was blooming and producing almonds. 9 Moses brought all of the staffs from before the Lord out to the people of Israel. They looked at them, and each man took his staff.
10 The Lord said to Moses, “Bring Aaron’s staff before the Testimony to be kept as a warning to the rebels. This should end their grumblings against me, so that they may not have to die.” 11 Moses did this. He did as the Lord had commanded him. 12 Then the people of Israel spoke to Moses saying, “We are dying, we are lost! We are all lost! 13 Anyone who approaches the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we going to die?”
Chapter 18
Sanctuary and Altar Duties. 1 The Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your family with you will bear guilt for offenses against the sanctuary, while you and your sons will bear guilt for offenses against your priesthood. 2 Bring your brothers from the Levites, your ancestral tribe, with you. Let them join with you and serve you when you and your sons are before the tent of Testimony. 3 They will attend to your duties and all the duties of the tent, but they must not come near the vessels of the sanctuary or the altar, lest they die and you also die. 4 They will join you and attend to the duties of the tent of meeting, for every service in the tabernacle. Let no one else approach you.
5 “You will attend to the duties of the sanctuary and the duties of the altar so that no wrath come upon the people of Israel. 6 It is I, myself, who have selected your brothers, the Levites, from among the people of Israel as a gift to you, dedicated to the Lord, to serve in the tent of meeting. 7 Only you and your sons can serve as priests for everything concerning the altar and whatever is inside the veil, and you will serve. I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift. Anyone else who comes near will be put to death.”[c]
Priests’ Share of Offerings. 8 The Lord spoke to Aaron: “I have given you responsibility over all my offerings, over all the sacred things of the people of Israel. I have given these things to you and your sons as a portion, a perpetual allotment. 9 This shall be yours from among the most holy things dedicated by fire: all of their oblations, all of their cereal offerings, all of their sin offerings and all of their guilt offerings. These things that they offer to me will be most holy to you and your sons. 10 You will eat it in a Most Holy Place. Every male will eat it. It will be holy for you.
11 “This also is yours: the offering of their gifts along with the wave offerings of the people of Israel. I have given them to you and your sons and daughters as your portion forever. Everyone who is pure in your household can eat it. 12 I have given to you all of the best of the oil and the best of the wine and of the wheat and their firstfruits that they offer to the Lord. 13 The first ripe fruits of all that is in the land that they bring to the Lord shall be yours. Everyone who is pure in your household can eat it.
14 “Everything that is dedicated[d] to the Lord will be yours. 15 Everything that opens the womb of all flesh that they bring to the Lord, whether man or beast, shall be yours. Nevertheless, you will redeem the firstborn son and you will redeem the firstborn male of impure animals. 16 When they are a month old, you shall redeem them at the redemption price of five shekels of silver, calculated according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which weighs twenty gerahs. 17 You are not to redeem the firstborn of the cattle or the firstborn of the sheep or the firstborn of the goats, for they are holy. Sprinkle their blood upon the altar and burn their fat as an offering made by fire, a pleasing fragrance to the Lord. 18 Their meat shall be yours, as well as the breast of the wave offering and the right thigh. These are yours. 19 All of the offerings of the holy things that the people of Israel bring to the Lord, I have given them to you and your sons and your daughters with you as an ordinance forever. This is a covenant of salt forever between the Lord and you and your descendants with you.”[e]
20 The Lord spoke to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.
21 Tithes Owed to the Levites.“I give the Levites all the tithes in Israel, an inheritance for the work that they perform in serving in the tent of meeting. 22 From now on the people of Israel must not approach the tent of meeting lest they sin and die. 23 The Levites will do the work of the tent of meeting. They will bear responsibility for offenses against it. This is an everlasting ordinance for all your generations. They will receive no inheritance from among the people of Israel. 24 I have given the Levites an inheritance of the tithes that the people of Israel present as an offering to the Lord. This is why I have said to them, ‘They will have no inheritance among the people of Israel.’ ”
25 Tithes Paid by the Levites.[f] The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 26 “Speak to the Levites and say to them, ‘When you receive a tithe from the people of Israel which I give you as an inheritance, you are to present a tithe of the tithe as the Lord’s offering. 27 Your offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor or as produce from the winepress. 28 You shall present an offering to the Lord from all your tithes that you receive from the people of Israel; you will give the Lord’s offering to Aaron the priest from them. 29 The Lord’s offering will come from the best and the holiest portion of all the gifts that you offer up.’ 30 Therefore, you will say to them, ‘When you have lifted up the best of it, the rest will be apportioned to the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and the produce of the winepress. 31 You can eat it anywhere, you and your households, as your reward for your service in the tent of meeting. 32 You will bear no guilt in this when you offer up the best of it, nor will you defile the holy gifts of Israel, lest you die.’ ”
Chapter 19
The Red Heifer. 1 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2 “This is a statute of the law which the Lord has commanded saying, ‘Tell the people of Israel to bring you an unblemished red heifer that has no defect and upon which a yoke has never been placed. 3 You will give it to Eleazar the priest. Take it outside of the camp and slaughter it in front of him. 4 Eleazar the priest is to dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle its blood seven times directly in front of the tent of meeting. 5 Then the heifer will be burned before him; its skin, its meat, its blood, and its dung will be burned. 6 The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them upon the burning heifer. 7 The priest is then to wash his clothes and bathe himself. He can then enter the camp, but he will be unclean until the evening. 8 The man who burns it must also wash his clothes in water and bathe in water, but he, too, will be unclean until the evening. 9 A man who is clean is to gather up the ashes from the heifer and place them in a clean place outside of the camp. They will be kept by the assembly of the people of Israel for the water of purification, for removal of sin. 10 The man who gathers the ashes of the heifer will wash his clothes, and he will be unclean until the evening. This is the way it will be for the people of Israel and the foreigner dwelling among them, a statute forever.
11 Water of Purification.“ ‘Whoever touches a person’s dead body will be unclean for seven days. 12 He will purify himself with the water on the third day, and on the seventh day he will be clean; but if he does not cleanse himself on the third day, then he will not be clean on the seventh day. 13 Whoever touches a dead body, the body of someone who died and then does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That person shall be cut off from Israel. He will be unclean because the water of purification was not sprinkled upon him; he will be unclean.
14 “ ‘This is the law for when a man dies inside of a tent. Everyone who comes inside the tent and everything that is in the tent will be unclean for seven days. 15 Every open uncovered container will be unclean. 16 Anyone who is out in the open fields and touches someone who has been killed with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a person, or a grave, that person will be unclean for seven days.
17 [g]“ ‘For the unclean, take the ashes from the burnt purification from sin and put them into a vessel and pour fresh water over them. 18 Then a person who is clean will dip hyssop into the water and sprinkle it upon the tent and upon its belongings and upon all the people who were there, upon anyone who touched a bone, or a person who was killed, or a dead body, or a grave. 19 The clean person will sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. On the seventh day he will purify himself. He will wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and then he will be clean in the evening. 20 But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself will be cut off from the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification was not sprinkled upon him and he is unclean. 21 It will be an everlasting statute that the one who sprinkles the water of purification will wash his clothes. The one who touches the water of purification will be unclean until the evening. 22 Whatever the unclean person touches will be unclean, and the person who touches it will be unclean until the evening.’ ”
30 The Return of the Twelve. The apostles[a] returned to Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, “Come away with me, by yourselves, to a deserted place and rest for a while.” For people continued to come and go in great numbers, and they had no time even to eat.
32 And so they went off by themselves in a boat to a deserted place. 33 Now many people saw them departing and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34 As Jesus went ashore and beheld the vast crowd, he had compassion on them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
35 Jesus Feeds Five Thousand Men.[b] When it began to be late in the day, his disciples came up to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and it is getting very late. 36 Send the people away now so that they can go to the farms and villages in the area and buy something for themselves to eat.” 37 He replied, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” They said to him, “Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii[c] on bread for them to eat?” 38 He asked, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” When they found out, they reported: “Five loaves, and two fish.”
39 Then he ordered them to have all the people sit down on the green grass in groups. 40 They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to distribute among the people. He also divided the two fish among them. 42 They all ate and were satisfied. 43 Then they gathered up the fragments of the bread and fish—twelve full baskets.[d] 44 Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
45 Jesus Walks on the Water.[e] Immediately afterward, Jesus instructed his disciples to get into the boat and to go on ahead to Bethsaida on the other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowd. 46 And when he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
47 When evening came, the boat was far out on the water while he was alone on the shore. 48 He could see that the disciples were having difficulty in rowing the boat in the face of a headwind. Around the fourth watch of the night he came toward them, walking on the water. He was going to pass by them, 49 but when the disciples saw him walking on the water they thought it was a ghost and they cried out, 50 for they all had seen him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them, saying, “Have courage! It is I![f] Do not be afraid!” 51 Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were utterly astounded, 52 for they had not understood about the loaves. Their minds were closed.
53 Jesus Heals the Sick at Gennesaret.[g] After they had completed the crossing, they landed at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they disembarked, the people recognized Jesus immediately. 55 They rushed throughout the entire countryside, and began to bring the sick to him on pallets wherever they heard he was. 56 Everywhere he went, whether to village or town or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak. And all who touched it were completely healed.
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