“Exact vengeance for the Israelites on the Midianites – after that you will be gathered to your people.”

You must send to the battle a thousand men from every tribe throughout all the tribes of Israel.”

So a thousand from every tribe, twelve thousand armed for battle in all, were provided out of the thousands of Israel.

From the Israelites’ half-share that Moses had separated from the fighting men,

the land that the Lord subdued before the community of Israel, is ideal for cattle, and your servants have cattle.”

We will not return to our homes until every Israelite has his inheritance.

These are the journeys of the Israelites, who went out of the land of Egypt by their divisions under the authority of Moses and Aaron.

The king of Arad, the Canaanite king who lived in the south of the land of Canaan, heard about the approach of the Israelites.

These are the ones whom the Lord commanded to divide up the inheritance among the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

And take the Levites for me – I am the Lord – instead of all the firstborn males among the Israelites, and the livestock of the Levites instead of all the firstborn of the livestock of the Israelites.”

For they are entirely given to me from among the Israelites. I have taken them for myself instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn sons of all the Israelites.

So Moses and Aaron and the entire community of the Israelites did this with the Levites. According to all that the Lord commanded Moses concerning the Levites, this is what the Israelites did with them.

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

Does it seem too small a thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the community of Israel to bring you near to himself, to perform the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the community to minister to them?

But I have given to the Levites for an inheritance the tithes of the Israelites that are offered to the Lord as a raised offering. That is why I said to them that among the Israelites they are to have no inheritance.”

Just then one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of the whole community of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal.

Those of them who were numbered were 23,000, all males from a month old and upward, for they were not numbered among the Israelites; no inheritance was given to them among the Israelites.

And every daughter who possesses an inheritance from any of the tribes of the Israelites must become the wife of a man from any family in her father’s tribe, so that every Israelite may retain the inheritance of his fathers.

“Take a census of the entire Israelite community by their clans and families, counting the name of every individual male.