The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³ 

¹ When ²  they journeyed from Elim, the entire company ³  of Israelites came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their exodus ⁴  from the land of Egypt.

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.

¹ The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me to the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets ²  with ³  the law and the commandments that I have written, so that you may teach them.” ⁴ 

“You are to make its seven lamps, ¹  and then set ²  its lamps up on it, so that it will give light ³  to the area in front of it.

Moses turned and went down from the mountain with ¹  the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. The tablets were written on both sides – they were written on the front and on the back.

You are to bring in the table and set out the things that belong on it; ¹  then you are to bring in the lampstand and set up its lamps.

“Speak to Aaron and tell him, ‘When you set up ¹  the lamps, the seven lamps are to give light ²  in front of the lampstand.’”

And Aaron did so; he set up the lamps to face toward the front of the lampstand, as the Lord commanded Moses.

So Balak brought Balaam ¹  to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, ²  where ³  he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Look, these people through the counsel of Balaam caused the Israelites to act treacherously against the Lord in the matter of Peor – which resulted in the plague among the community of the Lord!

However, it was not until ¹  the first day of the eleventh month ²  of the fortieth year ³  that Moses addressed the Israelites just as ⁴  the Lord had instructed him to do.

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

This is the land we brought under our control at that time: The territory extending from Aroer ¹  by the Wadi Arnon and half the Gilead hill country with its cities I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites. ² 

The Arabah and the Jordan River ¹  were also a border, from the sea of Chinnereth ²  to the sea of the Arabah (that is, the Salt Sea), ³  beneath the watershed ⁴  of Pisgah ⁵  to the east.

Go up to the top of Pisgah and take a good look to the west, north, south, and east, ¹  for you will not be allowed to cross the Jordan.

Be very careful, ¹  then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.

At that same time the Lord said to me, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark. ¹ 

So I made an ark of acacia ¹  wood and carved out two stone tablets just like the first ones. Then I went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands.

Then I turned, went down the mountain, and placed the tablets into the ark I had made – they are still there, just as the Lord commanded me.