Nombres 17

The censers cover the altar

¹Then the LORD spoke to Moses. He said,^{a 2}“Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to take the censers out of the burned remains and to scatter the coals far and wide, because the censers are holy. ³These men sinned at the cost of their own lives. Have their censers hammered into thin sheets to cover the altar. They were presented before the LORD, and so they became holy. Let them be a sign to the Israelites.” ⁴So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers that had been presented by the men who were burned, and they were hammered out to cover the altar, ⁵as a reminder to the Israelites that no outsider, no one who is not a descendant of Aaron, should come near to burn incense before the LORD, or he would become like Korah and his company. This was done as the LORD had told Eleazar through Moses. ⁶The very next day the whole congregation of the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the people of the LORD!” they said. ⁷But when the congregation gathered against Moses and Aaron and they turned toward the tent of meeting, they saw that the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared. ⁸Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting,

Aaron stands between the dead and the living

⁹and the LORD spoke to Moses. He said, ¹⁰“Get away from this congregation, and I will wipe them out in a moment.” But they fell face down. ¹¹Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire in it from the altar, and lay incense on it. Then take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has gone out from the LORD. The plague has begun!” ¹²So Aaron took it as Moses had said and ran into the middle of the assembly. The plague had already begun among the people, but he put the incense on and made atonement for them. ¹³He took his stand between the dead and the living, and the plague was held back. ¹⁴Those who died in the plague were 14,700, not counting those who died because of Korah. ¹⁵Then Aaron went back to Moses at the entrance to the tent of meeting, for the plague had been stopped.

Aaron’s staff sprouts

¹⁶The LORD spoke to Moses. He said,^{b 17}“Speak to the Israelites and get a staff from them for each ancestral family, one from each of their leaders by their ancestral families: twelve staffs. Write each man’s name on his staff. ¹⁸On Levi’s staff you are to write Aaron’s name, because each head of an ancestral family has one staff. ¹⁹Then place them in the tent of meeting in front of the testimony, where I meet with you. ²⁰The man I choose is the one whose staff will sprout. So I will make the grumbling of the Israelites against you die down, and it will trouble me no more.” ²¹So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and all their leaders gave him staffs, one for each leader, by their ancestral families: twelve staffs. Aaron’s staff was among them.^{c 22}Moses placed the staffs before the LORD in the tent of the testimony. ²³The next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony, and there was Aaron’s staff, the staff for the house of Levi, sprouting. It had put out buds, opened into blossoms, and borne ripe almonds. ²⁴Then Moses brought all the staffs out from before the LORD to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each leader took back his own staff.

²⁵The LORD said to Moses, “Return Aaron’s staff to its place before the testimony. It is to be kept there as a sign for the rebels, so that you can stop their complaints against me and they do not die.” ²⁶Moses did this. He did just as the LORD had commanded him.

Whoever comes near the tabernacle dies

²⁷Then the Israelites said to Moses, “We are dying! We are perishing, every one of us perishing! ²⁸Whoever comes near, anyone who comes near the tabernacle of the LORD, dies. Will we all perish to the last one?”^d