and said to Ephron in their hearing, “Hear me, if you will. I pay ¹  to you the price ²  of the field. Take it from me so that I may ³  bury my dead there.”

Then he moved away from there and dug another well. They did not quarrel over it, so Isaac ¹  named it ²  Rehoboth, ³  saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will prosper in the land.”

When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds ¹  would roll the stone off the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place over the well’s mouth.

These were the sons of Esau’s son Reuel: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah. These were the chiefs descended from Reuel in the land of Edom; these were the sons ¹  of Esau’s wife Basemath.

‘My father made me swear an oath. He said, ¹  “I am about to die. Bury me ²  in my tomb that I dug for myself there in the land of Canaan.” Now let me go and bury my father; then I will return.’”

When the Canaanites who lived in the land saw them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a very sad occasion ¹  for the Egyptians.” That is why its name was called ²  Abel Mizraim, ³  which is beyond the Jordan.

Our livestock must ¹  also go with us! Not a hoof is to be left behind! For we must take ²  these animals ³  to serve the Lord our God. Until we arrive there, we do not know what we must use to serve the Lord.” ⁴ 

You are to hang this curtain under the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there behind the curtain. ¹  The curtain will make a division for you between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. ² 

You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you have been living, ¹  and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am about to bring you; ²  you must not ³  walk in their statutes.

“‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ¹  so that ²  the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out.

You must divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families. To a larger group you must give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group you must give a smaller inheritance. Everyone’s inheritance must be in the place where his lot falls. You must inherit according to your ancestral ¹  tribes.

Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ¹  And you must give them forty-two other towns.

The community must deliver the slayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the community must restore him to the town of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there ¹  until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the consecrated oil.

Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, ¹  and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, ²  will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.

I also commanded Joshua at the same time, “You have seen everything the Lord your God did to these two kings; he ¹  will do the same to all the kingdoms where you are going. ² 

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ¹  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ²  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ³  annihilated.

Anyone who accidentally killed someone ¹  without hating him at the time of the accident ²  could flee to one of those cities and be safe.

When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, ¹  Girgashites, ²  Amorites, ³  Canaanites, ⁴  Perizzites, ⁵  Hivites, ⁶  and Jebusites, ⁷  seven ⁸  nations more numerous and powerful than you –

Now pay attention to all the commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed, ³ 

For the land where you are headed ¹  is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, a land where you planted seed and which you irrigated by hand ²  like a vegetable garden.