This is what the Lord has commanded for Zelophehad’s daughters: ‘Let them marry whomever they think best, only they must marry within the family of their father’s tribe.

These towns that you must give shall be your six towns for refuge.

O Lord, listen to me! Pay attention to my plea for mercy!

The cities of Aroer are abandoned. They will be used for herds, which will lie down there in peace.

Each of these cities had grazing areas around it; they were alike in this regard.

At the fords of the Arnon the Moabite women are like a bird that flies about when forced from its nest.

Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited.”

They will be desolate among desolate lands, and their cities will be among ruined cities.

I will save my sheep; they will no longer be prey. I will judge between one sheep and another.

“‘You must count for yourselves seven weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you bring the wave offering sheaf; they must be complete weeks.

From the places where you live you must bring two loaves of bread for a wave offering; they must be made from two tenths of an ephah of fine wheat flour, baked with yeast, as first fruits to the Lord.

you must then designate some towns as towns of refuge for you, to which a person who has killed someone unintentionally may flee.

“You must give three towns on this side of the Jordan, and you must give three towns in the land of Canaan; they must be towns of refuge.

These six towns will be places of refuge for the Israelites, and for the foreigner, and for the settler among them, so that anyone who kills any person accidentally may flee there.

And when the Jubilee of the Israelites is to take place, their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”

For I solemnly swear,” says the Lord, “that Bozrah will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

“‘You said, “These two nations, these two lands will be mine, and we will possess them,” – although the Lord was there –

Like the sheep for offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

Now if they should be married to one of the men from another Israelite tribe, their inheritance would be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. As a result, it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance.