Moses said, “You will know this ¹  when the Lord gives you ²  meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? ³  Your murmurings are not against us, ⁴  but against the Lord.”

¹ When the people saw that Moses delayed ²  in coming down ³  from the mountain, they ⁴  gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Get up, ⁵  make us gods ⁶  that will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, ⁷  the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what ⁸  has become of him!”

For how will it be known then that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not by your going with us, so that we will be distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?” ¹ 

So ¹  now, please come and curse this nation ²  for me, for they are too powerful for me. Perhaps I will prevail so that we may conquer them ³  and drive them out of the land. For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, ⁴  and whoever you curse is cursed.”

So all of you approached me and said, “Let’s send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.”

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage ¹  by describing people who are more numerous ²  and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven ³  itself! Moreover, they said they saw ⁴  Anakites ⁵  there.”

You said, “The Lord our God has shown us his great glory ¹  and we have heard him speak from the middle of the fire. It is now clear to us ²  that God can speak to human beings and they can keep on living.

This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ¹  God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.”

I saw among the goods we seized a nice robe from Babylon, ¹  two hundred silver pieces, ²  and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels. I wanted them, so I took them. They are hidden in the ground right in the middle of my tent with the silver underneath.”

but as a reminder to us and you, ¹  and to our descendants who follow us, that we will honor the Lord in his very presence ²  with burnt offerings, sacrifices, and tokens of peace. ³  Then in the future your descendants will not be able to say to our descendants, ‘You have no right to worship the Lord.’ ⁴ 

Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the priest, said to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the Manassehites, ¹  “Today we know that the Lord is among us, because you have not disobeyed the Lord in this. ²  Now ³  you have rescued the Israelites from the Lord’s judgment.” ⁴ 

The men of Judah said to their relatives, the men of Simeon, ¹  “Invade our allotted land with us and help us attack the Canaanites. ²  Then we ³  will go with you into your allotted land.” So the men of Simeon went with them.

On the fourth ¹  day they said to Samson’s bride, “Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. ²  If you refuse, ³  we will burn up ⁴  you and your father’s family. ⁵  Did you invite us here ⁶  to make us poor?” ⁷ 

The Gazites were told, ¹  “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town ²  and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. ³  They relaxed ⁴  all night, thinking, ⁵  “He will not leave ⁶  until morning comes; ⁷  then we will kill him!”

The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, “Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate ¹  him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”

When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate ¹  this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son’s benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image.” ² 

The Levite ¹  said to him, “We are traveling from Bethlehem ²  in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. ³  But no one has invited me into their home.

They were having a good time, ¹  when suddenly ²  some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, ³  surrounded the house and kept beating ⁴  on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.” ⁵ 

We will take ten of every group of a hundred men from all the tribes of Israel (and a hundred of every group of a thousand, and a thousand of every group of ten thousand) to get supplies for the army. ¹  When they arrive in Gibeah of Benjamin they will punish them for the atrocity which they committed in Israel.” ² 

All the people who were at the gate and the elders replied, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is entering your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the house of Israel! May ¹  you prosper ²  in Ephrathah and become famous ³  in Bethlehem. ⁴