Numbers 21:5–20

5 The people spoke against God and Moses, “aWhy have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no 1food and no water, and 2bwe loathe this miserable food.”

The Bronze Serpent

6 aThe Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and bthey bit the people, so that cmany people of Israel died.

7 aSo the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; bintercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.

8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “1Make a afiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”

9 And Moses made a abronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

10 aNow the sons of Israel moved out and camped in Oboth.

11 They journeyed from Oboth and camped at Iyeabarim, in the wilderness which is opposite Moab, to the 1east.

12 aFrom there they set out and camped in 1Wadi Zered.

13 From there they journeyed and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorites, afor the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

14 Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord,

“Waheb in Suphah,

And the wadis of the Arnon,

15 And the slope of the wadis

That extends to the site of aAr,

And leans to the border of Moab.”

16 aFrom there they continued to 1Beer, that is the well where the Lord said to Moses, “Assemble the people, that I may give them water.”

17 aThen Israel sang this song:

“Spring up, O well! Sing to it!

18 “The well, which the leaders sank,

Which the nobles of the people dug,

With the scepter and with their staffs.”

And from the wilderness they continued to Mattanah,

19 and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

20 and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the land of Moab, at the top of Pisgah which overlooks the 1wasteland.