The Budding of Aaron’s Rod

17 ^[a] The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ² Speak to the Israelites, and get twelve staffs from them, one for each ancestral house, from all the leaders of their ancestral houses. Write each man’s name on his staff, ³ and write Aaron’s name on the staff of Levi. For there shall be one staff for the head of each ancestral house. ⁴ Place them in the tent of meeting before the covenant,^[b] where I meet with you. ⁵ And the staff of the man whom I choose shall sprout; thus I will put a stop to the complaints of the Israelites that they continually make against you. ⁶ Moses spoke to the Israelites; and all their leaders gave him staffs, one for each leader, according to their ancestral houses, twelve staffs; and the staff of Aaron was among theirs. ⁷ So Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the covenant.^[c]

⁸ When Moses went into the tent of the covenant^[d] on the next day, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted. It put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds. ⁹ Then Moses brought out all the staffs from before the Lord to all the Israelites; and they looked, and each man took his staff. ¹⁰ And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Put back the staff of Aaron before the covenant,^[e] to be kept as a warning to rebels, so that you may make an end of their complaints against me, or else they will die.’ ¹¹ Moses did so; just as the Lord commanded him, so he did.

¹² The Israelites said to Moses, ‘We are perishing; we are lost, all of us are lost! ¹³ Everyone who approaches the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all to perish?’