e tabernacle. And on the morn there was found one of the rods that
burgeoned and bare leaves and fruit, and was of an almond tree. That rod
fell to Aaron.

And after this, long time, the children desired to eat flesh and
remembered of the flesh that they ate in Egypt, and grudged against
Moses, and would have ordained to them a duke for to have returned into
Egypt. Wherefore Moses was so woe that he desired of our Lord to deliver
him from this life, because he saw them so unkind against God. Then God
sent to them so great plenty of curlews that two days and one night they
flew so thick by the ground that they took great number, for they flew
but the height of two cubits. And they had so many that they dried them
hanging on their tabernacles and tents. Yet were they not content, but
ever grudging, wherefore God smote them and took vengeance on them by a
great plague and many died and were buried there. And then from thence
they went into Hazeroth and dwelt. After this Miriam and Aaron, brother
and sister of Moses, began to speak against Moses, because of his wife
which was of Ethiopia, and said: God hath not spoken only by Moses,
hath he not also spoken to us? Wherefore our Lord was wroth. Moses was
the humblest and the meekest man that was in all the world. Anon then,
our Lord said to him, and to Aaron and to Miriam: Go ye three only unto
the tabernacle; and there our Lord said that there was none like to
Moses, to whom he had spoken mouth to mouth, and reproved Aaron and
Miriam because they spake so to Moses, and being wroth, departed from
them, and anon, Miriam was smitten and made leper and white like snow.
And when Aaron beheld her and saw her smitten with leprosy, he said to
Moses: I beseech the Lord that thou set not the sin on us which we have
committed follily, and let not this our sister be as a dead woman, or as
born out of time and cast away from her mother, behold and see, half her
flesh is devoured of the leprosy. Then Moses cried unto our Lord,
saying: I beseech thee Lord that thou heal her; to whom our Lord said:
If her father had spit in her face should she not be put to shame and
rebuke seven days? Let her depart out of the castles seven days, and
after she shall be called in again. So Miriam was shut out of the
castles seven days, and the people removed not from the place till she
was called again.

After this our Lord commanded Moses to send men into the land of Canaan
that he should give them charge