“Speak to the Israelites and tell them to make ¹  tassels ²  for themselves on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and put a blue thread ³  on the tassel of the corners.

But the Levites must perform the service ¹  of the tent of meeting, and they must bear their iniquity. ²  It will be a perpetual ordinance throughout your generations that among the Israelites the Levites ³  have no inheritance. ⁴ 

Now the length of time it took for us to go from Kadesh Barnea to the crossing of Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, time for all the military men of that generation to die, just as the Lord had vowed to them.

The generation to come – your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places – will see ¹  the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the Lord has brought on it.

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 

We said, ‘If in the future they say such a thing ¹  to us or to our descendants, we will reply, “See the model of the Lord’s altar that our ancestors ²  made, not for burnt offerings or sacrifices, but as a reminder to us and you.”’ ³ 

You people of this generation, listen to what the Lord says. “Have I been like a wilderness to you, Israel? Have I been like a dark and dangerous land to you? ¹  Why then do you ²  say, ‘We are free to wander. ³  We will not come to you any more?’