36:1 Then came the heads of the family groups¹ of the Gileadites, the descendant of Machir, the descendant of Manasseh, who were from the Josephite families, and spoke before Moses and before the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families.² 36:2 And they said, “The LORD commanded my lord to give³ the land as an inheritance by lot to the Israelites; and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophahad to his daughters. 36:3 Now if they should be married to one of the men⁴ from another Israelite tribes, their inheritance would be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry.⁵ As a result, it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance. 36:4 And when the Jubilee of the Israelites is to take place,⁶ their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So their heritage will be taken away from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”⁷

36:5 Then Moses gave a ruling⁸ to the Israelites by the word of the LORD, saying, “What the tribe of the Josephites is saying is right. 36:6 This is what the LORD has commanded for Zelophahad’s daughters: ‘Let them marry⁹ whom they think best,¹⁰ only let them marry with the family of the tribe of their father. 36:7 In this way the inheritance of the Israelites will not be transferred¹¹ from tribe to tribe. But every one of the Israelites must retain the ancestral heritage. 36:8 And every daughter who possesses an inheritance from any of the tribes of the Israelites must become the wife of a man from any family in her father’s tribe, so that every Israelite¹² may retain the inheritance of his fathers. 36:9 And no inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe. But every one of the tribes of Israelites will retain its inheritance.”

36:10 As the LORD had commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophahad. 36:11 For the daughters of Zelophahad, namely Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, were married to the sons of their uncles.¹³ 36:12 They were married into the families of the Manassehites, the descendant of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father’s family.

36:13 These are the commandments and the decisions that the LORD commanded the Israelites through the authority of Moses, on the plains of Moab by the Jordan, opposite Jericho.