Mar 20th

“This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they take to you a red heifer without blemish, in which is no defect and on which a yoke has never been placed.

And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence.

Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.

Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned.

And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer.

The priest shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening.

The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening.

Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin.

And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the sojourner who sojourns among them.

‘The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he will be clean; but if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.

Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, makes the tabernacle of Yahweh unclean; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not splashed on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.

‘This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.

And every open vessel, which has no covering tied down on it, shall be unclean.

Also, anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel.

And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave.

Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.

‘But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly because he has made the sanctuary of Yahweh unclean; the water for impurity has not been splashed on him; he is unclean.

So it shall be a perpetual statute for them. And he who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.

Furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.’ ”

Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there.

Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.

The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “If only we had breathed our last when our brothers breathed their last before Yahweh!

Why then have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here?

And why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us into this evil place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.”

Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared to them;

and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

“Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.”

So Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, just as He had commanded him;

and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?”

Then Moses raised high his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.

But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

Those were the waters of Meribah because the sons of Israel contended with Yahweh, and He proved Himself holy among them.

From Kadesh Moses then sent messengers to the king of Edom: “Thus your brother Israel has said, ‘You know all the hardship that has befallen us,

that our fathers went down to Egypt, and we stayed in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians treated us and our fathers badly.

So we cried out to Yahweh, and He heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out from Egypt; now behold, we are at Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory.

Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or through vineyard; we will not even drink water from a well. We will go along the king’s highway; we will not turn to the right or to the left until we pass through your territory.’ ”

Edom, however, said to him, “You shall not pass through us, lest I come out to meet you with the sword.”

Again, the sons of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway, and if I and my livestock do drink any of your water, then I will pay its price. Let me only pass through on my feet, nothing else.”

But he said, “You shall not pass through.” And Edom came out to meet him with a heavy force and with a strong hand.

Thus Edom refused to allow Israel to pass through his territory; so Israel turned away from him.

Then they set out from Kadesh, and the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

“Aaron will be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the sons of Israel because you rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.

Take Aaron and his son Eleazar and bring them up to Mount Hor;

and strip Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar. So Aaron will be gathered to his people and will die there.”

So Moses did just as Yahweh had commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar, and Aaron died there on the mountain top. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

So all the congregation saw that Aaron breathed his last, and all the house of Israel wept for Aaron thirty days.

Then the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, and he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

So Israel made a vow to Yahweh and said, “If You will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”

Then Yahweh heard the voice of Israel and gave the Canaanites over; so they devoted them and their cities to destruction. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah.

Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient on the way.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”

So Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you; pray to Yahweh, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses prayed for the people.

Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard; and it will be that everyone who is bitten and looks at it, will live.”

And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it happened, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

Then the sons of Israel set out and camped in Oboth.

They then set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness which is opposite Moab, east toward the sunrise.

From there they set out and camped in Wadi Zered.

From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorites, for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of Yahweh,

Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah,

and entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

And it happened that when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?

For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said:

And Mary stayed with her about three months, and then returned to her home.

Now the time was fulfilled for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son.

And her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had magnified His great mercy toward her, and they were rejoicing with her.

And it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zechariah, after the name of his father.

But his mother answered and said, “No, but he shall be called John.”

And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.”

And they were making signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called.

And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they all marveled.

And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak, blessing God.

And fear came on all those living around them, and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea.

And all who heard these things put them in their heart, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was indeed with him.