First Reading

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on the pretext

of the marriage he had contracted with a Cushite woman.

They complained, “Is it through Moses alone that the Lord speaks?

Does he not speak through us also?”

And the Lord heard this.

Now, Moses himself was by far the meekest man on the face of the earth.

So at once the Lord said to Moses and Aaron and Miriam,

“Come out, you three, to the meeting tent.”

And the three of them went.

Then the Lord came down in the column of cloud,

and standing at the entrance of the tent,

called Aaron and Miriam.

When both came forward, he said,

“Now listen to the words of the Lord:

Should there be a prophet among you,

in visions will I reveal myself to him,

in dreams will I speak to him;

not so with my servant Moses!

Throughout my house he bears my trust:

face to face I speak to him;

plainly and not in riddles.

The presence of the Lord he beholds.

Why, then, did you not fear to speak against my servant Moses?”

So angry was the Lord against them that when he departed,

and the cloud withdrew from the tent,

there was Miriam, a snow-white leper!

When Aaron turned and saw her a leper, he said to Moses,

“Ah, my lord! Please do not charge us with the sin

that we have foolishly committed!

Let her not thus be like the stillborn babe

that comes forth from its mother’s womb

with its flesh half consumed.”

Then Moses cried to the Lord, “Please, not this! Pray, heal her!”