Numbers 21:5-17

⁵The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, no water, and we hate this miserable food.”

⁶Then Yahweh sent poisonous snakes among the people. The snakes bit the people; many people died.

⁷The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and you. Pray to Yahweh for him to take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a snake and attach it to a pole. It will happen that everyone who is bitten will survive, if he looks at it.”

⁹So Moses made a bronze snake and attached it to a pole. When a snake bit any person, if he looked at the bronze snake, he survived.

¹⁰Then the people of Israel traveled on and camped at Oboth.

¹¹They traveled from Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim in the wilderness that faces Moab toward the east.

¹²From there they traveled on and camped in the Valley of Zered.

¹³From there they traveled on and camped on the other side of the Arnon River, which is in the wilderness that extends from the border of the Amorites. The Arnon River forms the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

¹⁴That is why it says in the scroll of the Wars of Yahweh, “... Waheb in Suphah, and the valleys of the Arnon,

¹⁵the slope of the valleys that lead toward the town of Ar and lie along the border of Moab.”

¹⁶From there they traveled to Beer, the well where Yahweh said to Moses, “Gather the people together for me to give them water.”

¹⁷Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, well! Sing about it,