Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of their clans, ¹  made an offering. They were the leaders of the tribes; they were the ones who had been supervising ²  the numbering.

Your dead bodies ¹  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

If these men die a natural death, ¹  or if they share the fate ²  of all men, then the Lord has not sent me.

These were the families of the Ephraimites, according to those numbered of them, 32,500. ¹  These were the descendants of Joseph by their families.

And these are the Levites who were numbered according to their families: from Gershon, the family of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites; from Merari, the family of the Merarites.

and said to him, ¹  “Your servants have taken a count ²  of the men who were in the battle, who were under our authority, ³  and not one is missing.

From the descendants of Simeon: According to the records of their clans and families, all the males numbered of them ¹  twenty years old or older who could serve in the army were listed by name individually.

But appoint ¹  the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, ²  over all its furnishings and over everything in it. They must carry ³  the tabernacle and all its furnishings; and they ⁴  must attend to it and camp around it. ⁵ 

“All the service of the Gershonites, whether ¹  carrying loads ²  or for any of their work, will be at the direction of ³  Aaron and his sons. You will assign them all their tasks ⁴  as their responsibility.

‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, ¹  forgiving iniquity and transgression, ²  but by no means clearing ³  the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children until the third and fourth generations.’ ⁴