They left the mountain of the Lord to go on a three-day journey. The Ark of the Lord's Agreement led the way for them during these three days to find a place for them to camp.
Moses went up the mountain to God. The Lord spoke to Moses from the mountain, and told him, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob, the Israelites:
Moses was a shepherd, looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the Midianite priest. He led the flock far into the wilderness until he came to God's mountain, Mount Horeb.
At that time the root of Jesse will stand like a banner for the nations. Foreigners will come to him, and the place of where he lives will be glorious.
This is what the Lord says: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is where I place my feet. So where will this house be that you're going to build for me? Where will I lie down to rest?
At that time as you increase in number in the country, declares the Lord, no one will be talking about the Ark of the Lord's Agreement anymore. People won't need to think about it or remember it or wonder what happened to it; and certainly won't need to make a new one.
This is what the Lord says: Go and stand where the roads divide, and look. Find out which are the old paths. Ask, “What's the right way?” Then follow it and you'll be content. But you refused, saying, “We won't go that way!”
I promised them on that day to lead them out of Egypt and take them to a country that I had chosen for them, a land flowing with milk and honey—better than any other country.
who led you on the journey, present in the fire by night and in the cloud by day, looking to find a place for you to camp and to show you the way to go.
This was when I climbed up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets that recorded the agreement the Lord made with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, and I didn't eat or drink anything.
you can tell them, ‘It's about the time the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord's Agreement went across. When it crossed over the water stopped. These stones are a memorial to the people of Israel forever.’”
When the Israelite army returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord defeat us before the Philistines today? Let's go and get the Ark of the Lord's Agreement from Shiloh, so that he can accompany us and save us from our enemies.”