New American Bible, Revised Edition

Numbers 16:13-32 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

13. Are you not satisfied that you have brought us here from a land flowing with milk and honey to have us perish in the wilderness, that now you must also lord it over us?

14. Far from bringing us to a land flowing with milk and honey, or giving us fields and vineyards for our inheritance, will you gouge out our eyes? No, we will not go.”

15. Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, “Pay no attention to their offering. I have never taken a single donkey from them, nor have I wronged any one of them.”

16. Moses said to Korah, “You and all your faction shall appear before the Lord tomorrow—you and they and Aaron too.

17. Then each of you take his own censer, put incense in it, and present it before the Lord, two hundred and fifty censers; and you and Aaron, each with his own censer, do the same.”

18. So each of them took their censers, and laying incense on the fire they had put in them, they took their stand by the entrance of the tent of meeting along with Moses and Aaron.

19. Then, when Korah had assembled all the community against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting, the glory of the Lord appeared to the entire community,

20. and the Lord said to Moses and Aaron:

21. Stand apart from this community, that I may consume them at once.

22. But they fell prostrate and exclaimed, “O God, God of the spirits of all living creatures, if one man sins will you be angry with the whole community?”

23. The Lord answered Moses:

24. Speak to the community and tell them: Withdraw from the area around the tent of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.

25. Moses, followed by the elders of Israel, arose and went to Dathan and Abiram.

26. Then he spoke to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked men and do not touch anything that is theirs: otherwise you too will be swept away because of all their sins.”

27. So they withdrew from the area around the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. When Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing at the entrance of their tents with their wives, their children, and their little ones,

28. Moses said, “This is how you shall know that the Lord sent me to do all I have done, and that it was not of my own devising:

29. if these die an ordinary death, merely suffering the fate common to all humanity, the Lord has not sent me.

30. But if the Lord makes a chasm, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them with all belonging to them, and they go down alive to Sheol, then you will know that these men have spurned the Lord.”

31. No sooner had he finished saying all this than the ground beneath them split open,

32. and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their families and all of Korah’s people with all their possessions.