- Get away from this old world of Chaos and prepare for the New World!
- don’t do like the Israelites who stayed in the old world and died!
Numbers 16
A group of men, chieftains of the assembly, chosen ones of the congregation, prominent men, gather together against Moses and Aaron and say to them: “We have had enough of you! The whole assembly is holy, all of them, And God is in their midst. Why, then, should you exalt yourselves above the congregation of God?” When Moses hears this, he at once falls facedown. Then he says to all these men: “In the morning God will make known who belongs to him and who is holy and who should approach him, and whomever he may choose will approach him. Do this: Take fire holders, …, and put fire in them and place incense on them before God tomorrow, and the man whom God will choose, he is the holy one. You have gone far enough.
Moses then say to them: “Listen, please… Does it seem to you such a little thing that the God of Israel has separated you from the assembly of Israel and allowed you to approach him in order to perform the service of God’s tabernacle and to stand before the assembly to minister to them, and that he brought you near to him along with all your brothers…? Must you also try to secure the priesthood? For this reason, you and all your supporters who are gathering together are against God; As for Aaron, who is he that you should murmur against him?”
Moses later sends for Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, but they say: “We are not going to come! Is it so little a thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to put us to death in the wilderness? Now do you also want to make yourself an absolute ruler over us? As it is, you have not brought us into any land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of field and vineyard. Would you bore out the eyes of those men? We are not going to come!”
So Moses becomes very angry and says to God: “Do not turn to look at their grain offering. Not one donkey have I taken away from them, nor have I harmed one of them.”…
God now tells Moses and Aaron:
“Separate yourselves from among this group, so that I may exterminate them in an instant.” At this, they they fall with their faces to the ground and say:
“O God, the God of the spirit of all people, will one man’s sin cause you to become indignant against the entire assembly?”
God then says to Moses: “Speak to the assembly and tell them, “Get away from around the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!””
Then Moses gets up and goes to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel go with him.
He tells the assembly: “Move away, please, from the tents of these wicked men and do not touch anything that belongs to them, so that you may not be swept away in all their sin.” They immediately move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram come out, taking their stand at the entrance of their tents, together with their wives, their sons, and their little children.
Then moses says: “By this you will know that God has sent me to do all these things, that it is not of my own heart: If these people die a natural death as all men do and if their punishment is the same as that of all mankind, then God has not sent me. But if God does something extraordinary with them and the ground opens and swallows them and everything that belongs to them and they go down alive into the grave, you will certainly know that these men have treated God disrespectfully.
As soon as he finishes speaking all these words, the ground beneath them split apart. And the earth opens and swallows them up, along with their households and everyone who belongs to Korah and all their goods. So they and all who belong to them go down alive into the grave, and the earth covers them over, so that they perish from the midst of the congregation.
All the Israelites who are around them flee at their screaming, for they say: “We are afraid that the earth may swallow us up!” Then a fire comes out from God and consumes the 250 men offering the incense…
On the very next day, the whole assembly of the Israelites begin to murmur against Moses and Aaron, saying: “You two have put God’s people to death.” When the assembly has gathered together against Moses and Aaron, they then turn toward the tent of meeting, and look! The clous covers it, and God’s glory begins to appear.
Moses and Aaron go before the tent of meeting, and God says to Moses: “You men, remove yourselves from among this assembly, so that I may exterminate them in an instant.” At this they fall with their faces to the ground.
Moses then says to Aaron: “Take the fire holder and put fire from the altar in it and put incense on it and go quickly to the assembly and make atonement for them, because indignation has gone out from God. The plague has started!” Aaron at once takes it, just as Moses has said, and runs into the midst of the congregation, and look! The plague has started among the people. So he puts the incense on the fire holder and begins making atonement for the people. He keeps standing between the dead and the living, and the scourge eventually stops.
Those who die from the scourge amount to 14,700, besides those dead on account of Korah. When at last Aaron returns to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting, the scourge has been stopped.
