Israel

The Israelites set out from Rameses and camped at Succoth.

At the LORD’s command, Aaron the priest climbed Mount Hor and died there on the first day of the fifth month, in the fortieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt.

Now the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev in the land of Canaan, heard that the Israelites were coming.

“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

“Command the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land of Canaan, it will be allotted to you as an inheritance with these boundaries:

So Moses commanded the Israelites, “Apportion this land by lot as an inheritance. The LORD has commanded that it be given to the nine and a half tribes.

These are the ones whom the LORD commanded to apportion the inheritance to the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

“Command the Israelites to give, from the inheritance they will possess, cities for the Levites to live in and pasturelands around the cities.

The cities that you apportion from the territory of the Israelites should be given to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance of each tribe: more from a larger tribe and less from a smaller one.”

“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

These six cities will serve as a refuge for the Israelites and for the foreigner or stranger among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.

Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell. For I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites.”

Now the family heads of the clan of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, one of the clans of Joseph, approached Moses and the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families and addressed them,

saying, “When the LORD commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, He also commanded him to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.

But if they marry any of the men from the other tribes of Israel, their inheritance will be withdrawn from the portion of our fathers and added to the tribe into which they marry. So our allotted inheritance would be taken away.

And when the Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to the tribe into which they marry and taken away from the tribe of our fathers.”

So at the word of the LORD, Moses commanded the Israelites: “The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaks correctly.

No inheritance in Israel may be transferred from tribe to tribe, because each of the Israelites is to retain the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.

Every daughter who possesses an inheritance from any Israelite tribe must marry within a clan of the tribe of her father, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers.

No inheritance may be transferred from one tribe to another, for each tribe of Israel must retain its inheritance.”

These are the commandments and ordinances that the LORD gave the Israelites through Moses on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them.

See, I have placed the land before you. Enter and possess the land that the LORD swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.”

At that time I commanded you: “The LORD your God has given you this land to possess. All your men of valor are to cross over, armed for battle, ahead of your brothers, the Israelites.

This is the law that Moses set before the Israelites.