Exodus 16

¹⁰They set out from Elim and camped by the Red Sea.

¹¹They set out from the Red Sea and camped in the Desert of Sin.

²⁷Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the waters.

¹Then the whole congregation of Israel left the Desert of Sin, moving from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

¹⁰And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.

²⁴So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

⁷Our fathers in Egypt did not grasp Your wonders or remember Your abundant kindness; but they rebelled by the sea, there at the Red Sea.

²⁵They grumbled in their tents and did not listen to the voice of the Lord.

¹³Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.

¹¹They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the wilderness to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

⁴Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?

⁵We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.

³The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the Lord!

⁴Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?

³But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

⁹Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

⁶⁷In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.

⁶They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’

³They all ate the same spiritual food

⁴⁰They asked, and He brought quail and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

²Remember that these forty years the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

²⁴He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

²⁵Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

¹⁶He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.

²⁵And Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log. And when he cast it into the waters, they were sweetened. There the Lord made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested them,

²²On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food—two omers per person—and all the leaders of the congregation came and reported this to Moses.

²³He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”

²¹But I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years.

²²While you are sowing in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest, until the ninth year’s harvest comes in.

²For six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on that day must be put to death.

³Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”

⁷I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

³⁰But if the Lord brings about something unprecedented, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.”

²⁸Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things, for it was not my own doing:

¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹³That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

⁵¹And on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their divisions.

³“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”

⁵And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

⁴⁰Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

¹¹Therefore, it is you and all your followers who have conspired against the Lord! As for Aaron, who is he that you should grumble against him?”

²It will bloom profusely and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.

⁴When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

¹⁰And as Aaron was speaking to the whole congregation of Israel, they looked toward the desert, and there in a cloud the glory of the Lord appeared.

²Consequently, whoever resists authority is opposing what God has set in place, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

⁷And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king.

¹⁶Whoever listens to you listens to Me; whoever rejects you rejects Me; and whoever rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

²⁷“How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.

⁸Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Holy Spirit.

⁷Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the Lord so He will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses interceded for the people.

¹⁶And Moses said to Korah, “You and all your followers are to appear before the Lord tomorrow—you and they and Aaron.

⁸And Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.”

²And there in the desert the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

⁷and in the morning you will see the Lord’s glory, because He has heard your grumbling against Him. For who are we, that you should grumble against us?”

¹⁹When Korah had gathered his whole assembly against them at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole congregation.

⁴²But when the congregation gathered against them, Moses and Aaron turned toward the Tent of Meeting, and suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

⁶And Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do, so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.”

²¹And the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.

¹⁰And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord

¹¹so that the priests could not stand there to minister because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

¹⁷Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, My holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy, never again to be overrun by foreigners.

⁷and in the morning you will see the Lord’s glory, because He has heard your grumbling against Him. For who are we, that you should grumble against us?”

⁸And Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.”

⁷I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

²²From that day forward the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God.

³⁰Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are My people,’ declares the Lord God.

²⁴And Judah and all its cities will dwell together in the land, the farmers and those who move with the flocks,

⁹When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.

²⁷He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

²⁸He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

⁴⁰They asked, and He brought quail and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

³¹Now a wind sent by the Lord came up, drove in quail from the sea, and brought them near the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground, for a day’s journey in every direction around the camp.

³²All that day and night, and all the next day, the people stayed up gathering the quail. No one gathered less than ten homers, and they spread them out all around the camp.

³He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

¹⁵In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land that You had sworn to give them.

⁴⁰They asked, and He brought quail and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

²⁴He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

⁷Now the manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of gum resin.

⁸The people walked around and gathered it, ground it on a handmill or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot or shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry baked with fine oil.

¹⁶He spreads the snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes;

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions.

⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your fathers, who ate the manna and died, the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

³¹Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

³²Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

³¹Now the house of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.

³They all ate the same spiritual food

³He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

³⁶(Now an omer is a tenth of an ephah.)

¹⁸When they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall. Each one gathered as much as he needed to eat.

³²Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Keep an omer of manna for the generations to come, so that they may see the bread I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

³³So Moses told Aaron, “Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna. Then place it before the Lord to be preserved for the generations to come.”

¹⁴At the present time, your surplus will meet their need, so that in turn their surplus will meet your need. This way there will be equality.

¹⁵As it is written: “He who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall.”

¹⁰Do not leave any of it until morning; before the morning you must burn up any part that is left over.

¹⁸You must not offer the blood of My sacrifices with anything leavened, nor may the fat of My feast remain until morning.

³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.

²³He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”

¹⁴But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and told them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

²Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes.

³Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days.

⁵Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”

⁵Jesus looked around at them with anger and sorrow at their hardness of heart. Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and it was restored.

³³Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide yourselves with purses that will not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.

²⁶“Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger,

³⁵Then Jesus told them, “For a little while longer, the Light will be among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

¹Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of adversity come and the years approach of which you will say, “I find no pleasure in them,”

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

²For He says: “In the time of favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the time of favor; now is the day of salvation!

¹⁰Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.

⁶Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; observe its ways and become wise.

⁷Without a commander, without an overseer or ruler,

⁵Then on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

¹⁶This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. You may take an omer for each person in your tent.’”

²²While you are sowing in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest, until the ninth year’s harvest comes in.

³¹But Moses called out to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.

¹²For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat only the crops taken directly from the field.

³For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, a day of sacred assembly. You must not do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord.

⁸Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

¹⁵For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death.

²For six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on that day must be put to death.

³Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”

²And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work.

³Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.

⁵⁶Then they returned to prepare spices and perfumes. And they rested on the Sabbath, according to the commandment.

²⁰But they did not listen to Moses; some people left part of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

³³So Moses told Aaron, “Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna. Then place it before the Lord to be preserved for the generations to come.”

²³He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”

²⁹Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day He will give you bread for two days. On the seventh day, everyone must stay where he is; no one may leave his place.”

¹⁴You revealed to them Your holy Sabbath and gave them commandments and statutes and laws through Your servant Moses.

⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

¹⁰but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates.

¹“This is what the Lord God says: ‘The gate of the inner court that faces east must be kept shut during the six days of work, but on the Sabbath day and on the day of the New Moon it shall be opened.

¹³Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

¹⁴But the synagogue leader was indignant that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. “There are six days for work,” he told the crowd. “So come and be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath.”

⁴The slacker does not plow in season; at harvest time he looks, but nothing is there.

¹⁰They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

¹⁴But they would not listen, and they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe the Lord their God.

¹³Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.

¹³Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?

²²because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

¹³“Tell the Israelites, ‘Surely you must keep My Sabbaths, for this will be a sign between Me and you for the generations to come, so that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

¹³If you turn your foot from breaking the Sabbath, from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable, if you honor it by not going your own way or seeking your own pleasure or speaking idle words,

¹⁴then you will delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the land and feed you with the heritage of your father Jacob.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

¹²I also gave them My Sabbaths as a sign between us, so that they would know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

⁵⁶Then they returned to prepare spices and perfumes. And they rested on the Sabbath, according to the commandment.

¹⁴You revealed to them Your holy Sabbath and gave them commandments and statutes and laws through Your servant Moses.

¹²Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you.

¹³Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

⁹There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

³For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, a day of sacred assembly. You must not do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord.

⁶But now our appetite is gone; there is nothing to see but this manna!”

⁷Now the manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of gum resin.

³Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

⁵Remember the wonders He has done, His marvels, and the judgments He has pronounced,

¹⁹And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

⁴He has caused His wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate.

⁵He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever.

¹We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

¹Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name.

²Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—

⁴containing the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. Inside the ark were the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.

¹⁶And place inside the ark the Testimony, which I will give you.

²¹Set the mercy seat atop the ark and put the Testimony that I will give you into the ark.

²¹In the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil that is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons are to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening until morning. This is to be a permanent statute for the Israelites for the generations to come.

¹⁰The Lord said to Moses, “Put Aaron’s staff back in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign for the rebellious, so that you may put an end to their grumbling against Me, lest they die.”

²⁰Moses took the Testimony and placed it in the ark, attaching the poles to the ark; and he set the mercy seat atop the ark.

³⁶Grind some of it into fine powder and place it in front of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you.

²⁰You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.

²¹For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

¹²And the day after they had eaten from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. There was no more manna for the Israelites, so that year they began to eat the crops of the land of Canaan.

³⁰So they asked Him, “What sign then will You perform, so that we may see it and believe You? What will You do?

³¹Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

²Remember that these forty years the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

³He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

⁸See, 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.”

³⁸At 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.

¹⁶This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. You may take an omer for each person in your tent.’”

³²Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Keep an omer of manna for the generations to come, so that they may see the bread I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

³³So Moses told Aaron, “Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna. Then place it before the Lord to be preserved for the generations to come.”