The Daily Audio Bible

Each tribe will receive some land in Canaan

⁵² The Lord said to Moses, ⁵³ ‘I will give part of the land to each tribe. You need to know the number of names that you have on your list for each tribe. ⁵⁴ The big tribes will receive a big piece of land. The small tribes will receive a smaller piece of land. ⁵⁵ You must use lots to decide the land that each tribe receive. ⁵⁶ The larger clans must have more land than the smaller clans.’

⁵⁷ The Levites included these clans: Gershon's family, Kohath's family and Merari's family. ⁵⁸ It also included these clans: Libni's family, Hebron's family, Mahli's family, Mushi's family and Korah's family. Kohath was the father of Amram. ⁵⁹ The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed. She was a descendant of Levi, and she was born in Egypt. Amram and Jochebed were the parents of Moses and Aaron, and their sister Miriam. ⁶⁰ Aaron was the father of Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. ⁶¹ Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire to the Lord.^[a]

⁶² There were 23,000 male Levites who were more than one month old. Moses did not include them on the list of the other Israelite tribes. They did not receive any land as the other tribes did.

⁶³ Those are the men that Moses and Eleazar the priest counted. They counted them on the flat ground in Moab beside the Jordan River. Jericho was on the other side of the river. ⁶⁴ None of the men that Moses and Aaron had counted in the Sinai desert were still alive. ⁶⁵ The Lord had said about those men, ‘They will certainly die in the desert.’ Among all those men, only Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun were still alive.

Zelophehad's daughters

27 Then the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, came to speak to Moses. Hepher was the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, the son of Joseph. So Zelophehad belonged to the tribe of Manasseh. His daughters were called Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. ² Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the people were standing at the front of the Tent of Meeting. Zelophehad's daughters said to them, ³ ‘Our father died in the desert. But he was not in Korah's group of men who came together to speak against the Lord. He died in the desert because of his own sin, and he did not have any sons. ⁴ We are his daughters, so please give us some land along with our father's male relatives. Then people will not forget our father's family name.’

⁵ Moses asked the Lord about this. ⁶ The Lord said to Moses, ⁷ ‘What the daughters of Zelophehad said is right. You must give to them some of the land that their father's family will receive. Give to them the land that their father would have received.

⁸ Tell the Israelites this: “Sometimes a man only has daughters. When he dies, his daughters must receive what belongs to their family. ⁹ If he does not have any sons or daughters, you must give his family's land to his brothers. ¹⁰ If he does not have any brothers, you must give his land to his father's brothers. ¹¹ Sometimes the man's father may have no brothers. If that happens, you must give his land to another person in his family. This is a rule for all the people. The Lord gave this command to Moses.” ’

Joshua is the new leader

¹² The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go up to the top of the Abiram mountains. From there, look at the land that I am giving to the Israelites. ¹³ After that, you will die, just as your brother Aaron also died. ¹⁴ In the Zin desert, when the people turned against me, you did not obey my command. That happened when you hit the rock to get water at Meribah Kadesh. You did not show the people that I was holy, so now you will not go into the land of Canaan.’

¹⁵ Moses said to the Lord, ¹⁶ ‘You are the Lord, the God of the spirits of all people. Please choose another man to be leader over all the people. ¹⁷ He will lead them when they go out to fight, and he will bring them back safely. Then the Lord's people will not be like sheep who have no shepherd.’

¹⁸ The Lord replied to Moses, ‘Choose Joshua, the son of Nun. My Spirit is in him to help him lead well. Put your hand on him to take your place as leader. ¹⁹ He must stand in front of Eleazar the priest and in front of all the Israelites. Let all the people see that he is the new leader that I have chosen. ²⁰ Tell the people that they must obey him, because he now has your authority. ²¹ Eleazar the priest will use the Urim to find out from me what Joshua should do. Then Joshua can tell the people when to go out to fight, and he can lead them safely back again. He will tell all the Israelite people what they must do.’

²² Moses did as the Lord told him. He brought Joshua to stand in front of Eleazar the priest and all the people. ²³ He put his hands on Joshua to show that he would be the new leader. Moses gave his authority to Joshua, as the Lord had told him to do.

Offerings to the Lord

28 The Lord said to Moses, ² ‘Tell the Israelites that they must give their gifts to God at the proper time. The smell of the gifts when they burn will make him happy. ³ You must say to them, “This is the offering by fire that you must offer to the Lord: It must be two male lambs that are one year old. They must not have anything wrong with them. That is the burnt offering for every day. ⁴ You must give one lamb in the morning and one lamb in the evening. ⁵ With the lambs, you must also offer to God one kilogram of flour that you have mixed with one litre of good olive oil. ⁶ It is a regular burnt offering that God told you about. He told you about it on Sinai mountain. It is an offering by fire to the Lord. The smell as it burns makes the Lord happy. ⁷ Then the drink offering with it will be one litre of wine for each lamb. In God's Holy Tent, you must pour out a drink offering of the best wine to the Lord. ⁸ You must offer the other lamb when it begins to get dark. Offer it with a grain offering and a drink offering like the offerings in the morning. You must give it as an offering by fire. The smell of the smoke from these sacrifices will make the Lord happy.

⁹ Then on the Sabbath day, you must offer two male lambs that are one year old. They must not have anything wrong with them. And you must offer 2 kilograms of good flour. Mix that with oil as a grain offering. And you must give the proper drink offering with it. ¹⁰ This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath. But you must also give the regular burnt offering with its proper drink offering.

¹¹ Also, on the first day of every month, you must give a burnt offering to the Lord. It must be two young bulls, one male sheep and seven male lambs. The lambs must be one year old and they must not have anything wrong with them. ¹² With each bull and with the male sheep, you must give a grain offering. Mix together 3 kilograms of the best flour with olive oil. Offer it to me with each bull. Mix together 2 kilograms of the best flour with olive oil. Offer it to me with the male sheep. ¹³ And with each lamb you must give a grain offering. Mix together 1 kilogram of the best flour with olive oil. Offer it to me with each male lamb as a burnt offering to the Lord. The smell of the smoke from these sacrifices will make the Lord happy. ¹⁴ And there must be drink offerings with these sacrifices. The offering must be 2 litres of wine for a bull. It must be 1.5 litres for the male sheep and 1 litre for a lamb. That is the burnt offering of each month for every month of the year. ¹⁵ Also, you must offer one male goat as a sin offering to the Lord. You must offer it with the proper drink offering. But you must still offer the regular burnt offering.

John the Baptist prepares people to meet Jesus

3 This report is about John, the son of Zechariah. It happened when Tiberius Caesar had been the Roman ruler for 15 years.^[a] Pontius Pilate was the Roman ruler of Judea. Herod had authority over the region of Galilee. Herod's brother Philip had authority over Iturea and Trachonitis. Lysanias had authority over Abilene.^{[b] 2} At this time, the leaders of the priests were Annas and Caiaphas. John was living in the wilderness. While he was there, God spoke to him.

³ John went to many places near the Jordan River and spoke a message from God. ‘You have done many wrong things,’ he taught everybody. ‘You must turn away from them and change how you live. Then God will forgive you and I will baptize you.’

⁴ The prophet Isaiah wrote this message from God in his book:

⁵ Fill in every valley and make every mountain and hill flat.

⁶ Then everyone will see how God can save them.” ’^[c]

⁷ Crowds of people were going out into the wilderness. They wanted John to baptize them. He told them, ‘You are like dangerous snakes! God is angry. You are trying to run away from him. But he will soon punish people like you. ⁸ You have to show that you are sorry. Change how you live. Stop doing things that God does not like. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We are in the family of Abraham. God will surely not punish us.”^[d] Listen! God can take these stones and make children for Abraham out of them!^{[e] 9} You are like trees that have bad fruit. God has an axe ready to use. He will cut down every tree that does not make good fruit. He will throw those trees into the fire.’

¹⁰ ‘So what should we do?’ the crowd asked.

¹¹ John answered, ‘If you have two shirts, give one away. Give it to someone who does not have even one shirt. If you have some food, give some of it away. Give some to someone who has no food.’

¹² In the crowd, there were men who took taxes from people. These men also wanted John to baptize them. They asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ ¹³ John told them, ‘You must take the right amount of money from people. You must not take more money than the rules say you should take.’

¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked John, ‘What about us? What should we do?’

John replied, ‘Do not rob people of their money. Do not say that a person is guilty if he has not done anything wrong. You must not take money for yourself in that way. You should be happy with the money that you receive for your work.’^[f]

¹⁵ At this time people were thinking, ‘Is John the Messiah that God has promised?’ They were all hoping that he might be. ¹⁶ John knew what they were thinking. He said to them, ‘I baptize you with water. But someone else is coming soon. He is much greater than I am. I am not good enough even to undo his shoes for him. This other person will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹⁷ He is like a farmer that brings the wheat home from his field. He uses a special tool to throw the wheat up in the air. He does this to make the wheat seeds separate from what remains. Then he cleans his yard. He carefully stores all the seeds to keep them safe. But he burns everything else in a great fire that nobody can put out.’

¹⁸ John said many more things to the people. He was telling them the good news about how God could change their lives. ¹⁹ One day John told Herod, the ruler, that it was wrong for him to marry Herodias. Before that, she had been the wife of Herod's brother.^[g] John also told Herod that he had done many other bad things. ²⁰ So then Herod did an even worse thing; he locked John up in prison.

John baptizes Jesus

²¹ While John was still baptizing all the people, he also baptized Jesus. While Jesus was praying, the sky opened. ²² The Holy Spirit came down onto Jesus. When he came down like that, he looked like a dove. Then a voice spoke from heaven, ‘You are my Son and I love you. You make me very happy.’^[h]

David wrote this song. Tell the music leader to use stringed instruments.

God will keep me safe^[a]