Numbers 10

¹ Yahweh spoke to Moses and said:

² ‘Make two trumpets; make them of beaten silver; and use them for summoning the community, and for sounding the order to break camp.

³ Whenever they are sounded, the whole community is to gather round you, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁴ But if only one trumpet is sounded, then only the leaders, the chiefs of Israel’s battalions, are to gather round you.

⁵ ‘When the trumpet blast is accompanied by a battle cry, the camps pitched to the east shall set out.

⁶ At the second blast accompanied by a battle cry, the camps pitched to the south shall set out. To break camp, the trumpet blast must be accompanied by a battle cry,

⁷ but to assemble the community the trumpets shall be sounded without battle cry.

⁸ The sons of Aaron, the priests, are to sound the trumpets; this is a perpetual law for you and your descendants.

⁹ ‘In your own land when you go to war against an enemy who oppresses you, you must sound the trumpet with a battle cry: Yahweh your God will remember you, and you will be delivered from your enemies.

¹⁰ At your festivals, solemnities, or new-moon feasts, you will sound the trumpet at the time of your holocausts and your communion sacrifices, and they will call you to the remembrance of your God. I am Yahweh your God.’

¹¹ In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the Cloud lifted over the tabernacle of the Testimony.

¹² The sons of Israel set out, in marching order, from the wilderness of Sinai. In the wilderness of Paran the Cloud came to rest.

¹³ These are the men who set out in the vanguard, at the order of Yahweh given through Moses:

¹⁴ in the vanguard was the standard of the camp of the sons of Judah, in battle array. In command of Judah’s force was Nahshon son of Amminadab;

¹⁵ in command of the sons of Issachar, in battle array, was Nethanel son of Zuar;

¹⁶ in command of the tribe of the sons of Zebulun, in battle array, was Eliab son of Helon.

¹⁷ Then, the tabernacle being dismantled, the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari set out, carrying the tabernacle.

¹⁸ Then came the standard of the camp of the sons of Reuben, in battle array. In command of Reuben’s force was Elizur son of Shedeur;

¹⁹ in command of the tribe of the sons of Simeon, in battle array, was Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai;

²⁰ in command of the tribe of the sons of Gad, in battle array, was Eliasaph son of Reuel.

²¹ Then came the sons of Kohath, who carried the sanctuary (the tabernacle was set up before their arrival).

²² Then came the standard of the camp of the sons of Ephraim, in battle array. In command of Ephraim’s force was Elishama son of Ammihud;

²³ in command of the tribe of the sons of Manasseh, in battle array, was Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;

²⁴ in command of the tribe of the sons of Benjamin was Abidan son of Gideoni.

²⁵ Last of all, the rearguard of all the camps, came the standard of the camp of the sons of Dan, in battle array. In command of the force of Dan was Ahiezer, son of Ammishaddai;

²⁶ in command of the tribe of the sons of Asher, in battle array, was Pagiel son of Ochran;

²⁷ in command of the sons of Naphtali, in battle array, was Ahira son of Enan.

²⁸ Such was the order of march for the sons of Israel, in battle array. So they set out.

²⁹ Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, his father-in-law, ‘We are setting out for the land of which Yahweh has said: I will give it to you. Come with us, and we will treat you well, for Yahweh has promised happiness to Israel.’

³⁰ ‘I will not come with you,’ he answered ‘I will go to my own land and my own kindred.’

³¹ ‘Do not leave us,’ Moses replied ‘for you know where we can camp in the wilderness, and so you will be our eyes.

³² If you come with us, you will share in the blessing of the happiness with which Yahweh blesses us.’

³³ They set out from the mountain of Yahweh and journeyed for three days. The ark of the covenant of Yahweh went at their head for this journey of three days, searching out a camping place for them.

³⁴ In the daytime, the Cloud of Yahweh was over them whenever they left camp.

³⁵ And as the ark set out, Moses would say, ‘Arise, Yahweh, may your enemies be scattered and those who hate you run for their lives before you!’

³⁶ And as it came to rest, he would say, ‘Come back, Yahweh, to the thronging hosts of Israel’.