Numbers 12

The AIT Bible

Miriam and Aaron Challenge Moses

1Now Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on account of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.

2And they said, “Has Yahweh spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And Yahweh heard it.

3Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any human being on the face of the earth.

4And suddenly Yahweh said to Moses and to Aaron and to Miriam, “Go out, the three of you, to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them went out.

5And Yahweh came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent, and he called Aaron and Miriam, and the two of them went out.

6And he said, “Hear now my words: If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, make myself known to him in a vision; in a dream I speak with him.

7Not so with my servant Moses; in all my house he is faithful.

8Mouth to mouth I speak with him, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of Yahweh. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”

9And the anger of Yahweh burned against them, and he departed.

10When the cloud turned away from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.

11And Aaron said to Moses, “Please, my lord, do not lay upon us the sin in which we have acted foolishly and by which we have sinned.

12Let her not be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.”

13And Moses cried out to Yahweh, saying, “O God, please heal her, please.”

14And Yahweh said to Moses, “If her father had but spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp for seven days, and afterward she may be gathered back in.”

15So Miriam was shut outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not set out until Miriam was gathered back in.

16And afterward the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

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