The Daily Audio Bible

The silver trumpets

10 The Lord said to Moses, ² ‘Make two trumpets from one piece of silver. Use a hammer to make them in the right shape. Make a noise with them to tell the people that they must come together. Also, use the trumpets to tell the people that they must move the camp. ³ When the people hear the sound from both trumpets, all the people must meet you. They must meet you at the door of the Tent of Meeting. ⁴ But you may want only the leaders of Israel's tribes to meet you. If you want that, a priest should make the sound from only one trumpet. ⁵ But when the sound is one short sound, the tribes on the east side of the camp must start to travel. ⁶ When they hear the next short sound, the tribes on the south side of the camp must start to travel. Short sounds from the trumpet will tell the people that they must start to travel. ⁷ But when you want everyone to meet together, make a different sound with the trumpet.

⁸ The priests, the sons of Aaron, must use the trumpets to make a noise. This is a rule for you and for all your descendants. ⁹ Use the trumpets to tell everyone when an enemy is attacking you in your own land. Make a sound with the trumpets to tell the people that they must fight the enemy. Then the Lord your God will hear and he will save you from your enemies. ¹⁰ You must make sounds with the trumpets on your happy days, too. And you must make sounds with the trumpets at your regular festivals and on the first days of your months. And you must make sounds with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over your friendship offerings. God will hear and he will remember you. I am the Lord your God.’

The Israelites leave the Sinai desert

¹¹ In the second year, in the second month, on the 20th day of the month, the cloud went up. It went away from God's Tent of Meeting. ¹² So the Israelites started to travel on their journey away from the Sinai desert.^[a] Then the cloud stopped in the desert called Paran. ¹³ They started to travel for the first time, in the way that the Lord had told them to do, through Moses.

¹⁴ The flag of the camp of Judah's tribe, started to travel first, with all their armies. And Nahshon the son of Amminadab was over all their armies. ¹⁵ Nethanel, the son of Zuar, was over the army of the tribe of Issachar. ¹⁶ Eliab, the son of Helon, was over the army of the tribe of Zebulun. ¹⁷ Then the Levites packed God's Tent. Then Gershon's clan and Merari's clan, who were carrying God's Tent, started to travel.

¹⁸ Next the flag of the camp of Reuben started to travel, with all their armies. Elizur, the son of Shedeur, was over all their armies. ¹⁹ Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai, was over the army of the tribe of Simeon. ²⁰ Eliasaph, the son of Deuel, was over the army of the tribe of Gad. ²¹ Then Kohath's clan started to travel. They were carrying the holy things. Before they arrived at the new camp, the other Levites would put up God's Tent.

²² Next the flag of the camp of the tribe of Ephraim started to travel, with all their armies. Elishama the son of Ammihud was over all their armies. ²³ And Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur was over the army of the tribe of Manasseh. ²⁴ And Abidan the son of Gideoni was over the army of the tribe of Benjamin.

²⁵ Then the flag of the camp of the tribe of Dan started to travel last, with all their armies. They could keep the Israelites safe if an enemy attacked them from behind them. Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai was over all their armies. ²⁶ And Pagiel the son of Ocran was over the army of the tribe of Asher. ²⁷ And Ahira the son of Enan was over the army of the tribe of Naphtali. ²⁸ The Israelites marched out like that every time that they started to travel.

²⁹ Moses spoke to Reuel's son, Hobab. He was the brother of Moses' wife. He was a Midianite. Moses said to Hobab, ‘We are leaving here now to go to another place. The Lord has said to us, “I will give that place to you.” The Lord has promised to help Israel's people with good things. So come with us and we will take care of you.’

³⁰ But Hobab said to him, ‘I will not come. Instead, I will return to my own country and to my family there.’

³¹ Moses said, ‘Please do not leave us. You know good places for us to put up our tents in the desert. So you can be our guide. ³² And if you come with us, we will share with you the good things that the Lord gives to us.’

³³ So the Israelites left the Lord's mountain. They travelled for three days. During that time, the Levites carried the Lord's Covenant Box in front of them. That was so that the Lord could show them where to make their camp. ³⁴ And the Lord's cloud was over them during the day, whenever they started to travel from the camp.

³⁵ Each time that the Covenant Box started to travel Moses said, ‘Be ready, Lord! Cause your enemies to run away in every direction!’ ³⁶ When they stopped travelling, Moses said, ‘Return, Lord, to be near to the thousands of Israel's people.’

The people complain

11 But the people started to complain about their problems.^[b] The Lord heard them and he became very angry. He sent fire. The Lord sent his fire to burn among them. It destroyed some parts of the camp at the edge. ² So the people asked Moses to help them. And Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire stopped. ³ So that place was called Taberah, because the Lord's fire burned among them there.

⁴ Some foreign people were travelling with the Israelites.^[c] Those people wanted very much to eat better food. So the Israelites wept again. They said, ‘We want meat to eat! ⁵ We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt. We had as much as we wanted. And we remember all the nice vegetables, cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic. And we remember the melons. ⁶ But now our mouths are dry and we do not want to eat this food. There is not even anything to look at, except this manna.’ ⁷ The manna was like small seeds called coriander. Its colour was yellow and white. ⁸ The people walked about and they picked it up from the ground. They used stones to make it into flour. Or they beat it with a stick. They boiled it in pots, and they made cakes with it. The taste of the cakes was like olive oil. ⁹ At night, dew fell on the ground in the camp. The manna fell with the dew.

¹⁰ People in every family were crying at the doors of their tents. And Moses heard them. The Lord became very angry with the people. Moses too was not happy. ¹¹ So Moses said to the Lord, ‘I am your servant. But you have given this problem to me! It seems that you are not pleased with me. You have given to me the hard job to be leader of all these people. ¹² They are not my children! But you have said to me, “Take care of them like parents take care of their babies. Carry them to the land that I have promised to their ancestors.” ¹³ They are complaining to me. They are saying, “Give us meat that we can eat!” But I cannot get meat to feed all these people! ¹⁴ I cannot be the leader of all these people unless I receive help. This job is too difficult for me. ¹⁵ So if you do not want to help me, please kill me now. I do not want to continue to be so upset. So please be kind to me.’

¹⁶ So the Lord said to Moses, ‘Choose 70 leaders of the Israelites and bring them to the Tent of Meeting. You must know that they are leaders and officers that the people respect. Bring them to stand there with you. ¹⁷ Then I will come down and I will speak with you there. I will take some of the authority of my Spirit that I gave to you. I will share it with them. Then they will help you to lead the people. So you will not be the only man who is doing that job.

¹⁸ Then say to the people, “The Lord heard you when you were weeping. You said, ‘We want someone to give us meat to eat! Life was better when we were in Egypt.’ So the Lord will give you meat and you will eat it. So make yourselves clean for tomorrow, and then you will eat meat. ¹⁹ You will not eat it only for one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or 20 days. ²⁰ You will eat it every day for a whole month! You will hate the smell of it and it will seem disgusting to you. This is because you have turned against the Lord. He is near to you and you have wept in front of him. You have said, ‘We should never have left Egypt.’ ” ’

²¹ Moses said to the Lord, ‘There are 600,000 men here. But you have said, “I will give to them meat to eat for a whole month.” ²² Even if we killed all our sheep and cows, we would not have enough meat for them. If we caught every fish in the sea, we still would not have enough!’

²³ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Do you think that I, the Lord, do not have enough power to do this? I have promised you to do it. So now you will see me do it!’

The Jewish leaders want to kill Jesus

14 It was now two days before the Passover festival. It was the time when Jews eat flat bread which has no yeast in it.^[a] The leaders of the priests and the teachers of God's Law wanted to kill Jesus. But they wanted to take hold of him secretly. So they tried to decide how they could do that. ² They said to each other, ‘We do not want to do it during the festival. If we do that, the people will be angry. Then they may fight against us.’

A woman pours special oil on Jesus' head

³ Then Jesus went to Bethany, and he visited Simon at his house. At one time, Simon had had a bad disease of the skin. While Jesus was eating a meal there, a woman came into the house. She brought a small stone jar that contained expensive oil with a very nice smell. They used nard to make it. The woman broke the jar to open it. Then she poured the oil over Jesus' head.^[b]

⁴ But some people became angry. They said to each other, ‘This woman should not have wasted the oil. ⁵ She could have sold it and she could have given the money to poor people. She could have sold it for more than 300 coins. A man would have to work for a year to get that much money.’ So they spoke angrily to the woman.

⁶ But Jesus said, ‘Do not speak to her like that! Do not cause trouble for her. She has done a good thing to me. ⁷ You will always have poor people with you. You can help them at any time that you want. But you will not always have me with you. ⁸ This woman did what she was able to do. She poured oil over my body. So now, my body will be ready for people to bury me. ⁹ I tell you this: Everywhere in the world, people will speak about God's good news. At the same time, they will also tell people about the good thing that this woman has done. And so they will remember her.’

Judas agrees to help the leaders of the priests

¹⁰ Then Judas Iscariot went to the leaders of the priests. He said that he would help them to catch Jesus. (Judas was one of Jesus' 12 apostles.) ¹¹ The leaders of the priests were very happy about this. They promised to give Judas some money. Then Judas waited for the right moment to help them to take hold of Jesus.

Jesus eats his last meal with his 12 apostles

¹² The first day of the festival when the Jews eat flat bread arrived. On this day, each family kills a young sheep for the Passover meal. Jesus' disciples said to him, ‘We will go to prepare the Passover meal for you. Where do you want us to do that?’

¹³ So Jesus sent two disciples to prepare the meal. ‘Go into the city,’ he said to them. ‘A man, who is carrying a jar of water, will meet you. Follow him. ¹⁴ He will go to a house. You must say to the master of that house, “The Teacher sends this message to you: ‘Where is the room for visitors? I will eat the Passover meal there with my disciples.’ ” ¹⁵ Then the man will show you a large room upstairs. The room will have in it all the things that you will need. You should prepare the Passover meal for us there.’

¹⁶ Then the two disciples left and they went into the city. They found everything as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover meal there.

¹⁷ When it was evening, Jesus arrived with the 12 apostles. ¹⁸ While they were eating the meal, Jesus said, ‘I tell you this: One of you will help the Jewish leaders to take hold of me. It is someone who is eating this meal with me.’

¹⁹ The disciples became very sad. Each one of them said to Jesus, ‘Surely you do not mean me, do you?’

²⁰ Jesus said to them, ‘It is one of you 12 apostles. That man is eating from the same dish as I am.^{[c] 21} The Son of Man must die in the way that the Bible says. But it will be very bad for the man who gives me to my enemies. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.’

David wrote this psalm for the music leader.

It was when the prophet Nathan came to him, after David had sex with Bathsheba.

Please forgive me, Lord^[a]