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 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.

and your children will wander ¹  in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, ²  until your dead bodies lie finished ³  in the wilderness.

Now the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had killed among them; the Lord also executed judgments on their gods.

In this way the inheritance of the Israelites will not be transferred ¹  from tribe to tribe. But every one of the Israelites must retain the ancestral heritage.

Moses said to them: “If the Gadites and the Reubenites cross the Jordan with you, each one equipped for battle in the Lord’s presence, and you conquer the land, ¹  then you must allot them the territory of Gilead as their possession.

Nadab and Abihu died ¹  before the Lord ²  when they offered ³  strange ⁴  fire ⁵  before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. ⁶  So Eleazar and Ithamar ministered as priests ⁷  in the presence of ⁸  Aaron their father.

But the Israelites ¹  defeated him in battle ²  and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the Ammonites, for the border of the Ammonites was strongly defended.

Just then ¹  one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers ²  a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of ³  the whole community of the Israelites, while they ⁴  were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, ¹  and has made atonement ²  for the Israelites.’”

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 ¹  may retain the inheritance of his fathers.

“Only the tribe of Levi ¹  you must not number ²  or count ³  with ⁴  the other Israelites.

“The Israelites will camp according to their divisions, each man in his camp, and each man by his standard.

But the Levites were not numbered among the other Israelites, as the Lord commanded Moses.

So Moses took the redemption money ¹  from those who were in excess of those redeemed by the Levites.

Every offering ¹  of all the Israelites’ holy things that they bring to the priest will be his.

“Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘If any man’s wife goes astray and behaves unfaithfully toward him,

You are to bring the Levites before the tent of meeting and assemble the entire community of the Israelites.

Then you are to bring the Levites before the Lord, and the Israelites are to lay their hands on the Levites; ¹