¹ The whole community ²  of the Israelites traveled on their journey ³  from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. ⁴  Now ⁵  there was no water for the people to drink. ⁶ 

On ¹  the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning and a dense ²  cloud on the mountain, and the sound of a very loud ³  horn; ⁴  all the people who were in the camp trembled.

When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. ¹  He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. ² 

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, ¹  the way a person speaks ²  to a friend. Then Moses ³  would return to the camp, but his servant, Joshua son of Nun, a young man, did not leave the tent. ⁴ 

Moses instructed them to take ¹  his message ²  throughout the camp, saying, “Let no man or woman do any more work for the offering for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing any more. ³ 

all the rest of the bull ¹  – he must bring outside the camp ²  to a ceremonially clean place, ³  to the fatty ash pile, ⁴  and he must burn ⁵  it on a wood fire; it must be burned on the fatty ash pile.

He ¹  must bring the rest of the bull outside the camp ²  and burn it just as he burned the first bull – it is the sin offering of the assembly.

Moses then called to Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel, Aaron’s uncle, and said to them, “Come near, carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp.”

“The one being cleansed ¹  must then wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and bathe in water, and so be clean. ²  Then afterward he may enter the camp, but he must live outside his tent seven days.

Now ¹  an Israelite woman’s son whose father was an Egyptian went out among the Israelites, and the Israelite woman’s son and an Israelite man ²  had a fight in the camp.

“Bring the one who cursed outside the camp, and all who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the whole congregation is to stone him to death. ¹ 

Then Moses spoke to the Israelites and they brought the one who cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. So the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

But appoint ¹  the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, ²  over all its furnishings and over everything in it. They must carry ³  the tabernacle and all its furnishings; and they ⁴  must attend to it and camp around it. ⁵ 

But the Levites must camp around the tabernacle of the testimony, so that the Lord’s anger ¹  will not fall on the Israelite community. The Levites are responsible for the care ²  of the tabernacle of the testimony.”

“Now those who will be camping ¹  on the east, toward the sunrise, ²  are the divisions ³  of the camp of Judah under their standard. The leader of the people of Judah is ⁴  Nahshon son of Amminadab.

“Then the tent of meeting with the camp of the Levites will travel in the middle of the camps. They will travel in the same order as they camped, each in his own place ¹  under his standard.

When it is time for the camp to journey, ¹  Aaron and his sons must come and take down the screening curtain and cover the ark of the testimony with it.

Whenever the cloud was taken up ¹  from the tabernacle, then after that the Israelites would begin their journey; and in whatever place ²  the cloud settled, there the Israelites would make camp.

The standard of the camp of the Danites set out, which was the rear guard ¹  of all the camps by their companies; over his company was Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.

¹ When the people complained, ²  it displeased ³  the Lord. When the Lord heard ⁴  it, his anger burned, ⁵  and so ⁶  the fire of the Lord ⁷  burned among them and consumed some of the outer parts of the camp.