That was the time when the earth opened and swallowed Korah and all of his followers. And 250 men died! That was a warning to all the people of Israel.
All of the Jewish captives will use those men as examples when they ask for bad things to happen to other people. Those captives will say: ‘May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab. The king of Babylon burned those two in the fire!’
I will turn against that person. I will destroy him. He will be an example to other people. People will laugh at him. I will remove him from my people. Then you will know that I am the Lord!
Those four men gathered 250 other men from Israel together and came against Moses. They were leaders that had been chosen by the people. All the people knew them.
“Our father died while we were traveling through the desert. Our father died a natural death. He was not one of the men that joined Korah’s group. (Korah was the man who turned against the Lord.) But our father had no sons.
You saw what the Lord did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab from Reuben’s family. All the people of Israel watched as the ground opened up like a mouth and swallowed those men. It swallowed their families, their tents, and all of their servants and animals.
And God also punished the \{evil\} cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. {\cf2\super [7]} God burned those cities until there was nothing left but ashes. God made those cities be an example to show what will happen to people who are against God.