The Gist - Read the Bible, like, Really Quick

"Cast away the lepers or anyone with a skin disease or who's bleeding, spewing pus, vomiting a whole lot, that kinda thing," commanded God.  "Or if they're otherwise ceremonially unclean, like those weirdos who hang around all weekend frolicking about in corpses." So Moses did. Having read the Bible, I know that I will have to drastically improve my zombification skills.  Still, this was quite fun. "Also," continued the LAWD, "tell the Israelites that anyone who sins against any other person is unfaithful to me, guilty, and must confess the sin, and then make restitution.  Give the measure of restitution to the person you wronged and add 20%, via rules of the Divine Pawn Shop.  If the person you wronged has no close relative to give the restitution to, give it to the priest." God then thought for a moment about other sage wisdom he could impart to his dirt-clod creations.  After a while, he commanded Moses's attention: "Hey!...

God commanded Moses and Aaron to number all the other clans and give them jobs according to their clans. Really that's pretty much all this amounts to.  I'm not goin' any deeper here 'cause this is The Gist, not VH1's "Behind the Ol' Israeli Census."  Not my job, folks.  Movin' on.

God told Moses to bring the Levi tribe to Aaron for indefinite priestly assistance.  Nobody but the Levites, Aaron, and his leftover not-murdered-by-God-because-of-the-wrong-incense sons were to approach the Tentmoot or they'd be killed. Just in case you forgot, and because I enjoy this one, here's a reminder of how the all-loving, all-powerful, all-merciful God murdered his very first priest's sons for burning the wrong kind of incense. "In place of my right to take your firstborn of everything," God clarified, "I'm taking all the Levites for holy-place upkeep.  Now go count 'em for me--every male over a month old." So Moses did--they amounted to 22,000.  There were 273 other firstborn Israelites and for some reason they had to be redeemed with money (presumably to resolve the LAWD's debt with his bookie).  So Moses collected about 35 pounds of sanctuary shekels to redeem the 273 excess firstborn and gave the money to Aaron and his le...

God told Moses how the Israelites were to encamp around the Tentmoot, and Moses told them, and they did it. No, seriously.  That's all that happens here.

God talked to Moses in the Tentmoot in Sinai and told him: "Take a census of all the Israelite clans and families, listing every man one by one.  Count every man over 20 years old who are able to serve in the army.  One man from each tribe--from the tribes Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad, and Naphtali--will help you." "The guys helping you are the heads of their clans in Israel," continuethed the LAWD. So Moses and Aaron called the Israelites together and everyone registered their ancestry. For a low monthly fee, you can have a ghost of a chance of figuring out where you came from!   SPOILER ALERT:  It's Earth. The able-bodied army-bound 20+-year-old men from each tribe are listed by number as follows: REUBEN:  46,500 SIMEON:  59,300 GAD:  45,650 JUDAH:  74,600 ISSACHAR:  54,400 ZEBULUN:  57,400 EPHRAIM:  40,500 MANASSEH:  32,200 BENJAMIN:  35,400 DAN:  ...

God told Moses to tell the Israelites that Matt's really tired of typing the phrase "God told Moses to tell the Israelites." He didn't really.  It probably didn't cross his mind at the time, and if it did, I would be but a lowly scribe, and therefore would be expendable and likely horrifically murdered in the manner of Aaron's sons earlier on for the wrong incense.  Here's a quick reminder of what happened to them, and by which I can only dream to measure the outpouring of wrath upon my person for growing weary of something so trivial: Oh.  Right.  Immolation-death after a divine tantrum 'cause they burned the wrong kind of incense. Moving on, though, he told Moses to tell 'em all this stuff: --- If you wanna make a special vow to dedicate somebody to me by giving the equivalent value, males are worth more than females, and the breakdown is as follows: SOURCE :  God pulled these numbers out of his mystical, shiny ass. You can vow other st...

All this stuff was said by God. "No idols or sacred standing stone Druid crap.  Revere my church and observe my sabbath.  Obey me and I'll send you rain when you need it so you can eat fruit and veg and continue your existence.  I'll grant you peace in your land--no wild beasts, no swords, no wars, no Paris Hilton, etc.  Your enemies will all be defeated, even if it's a hundred of them against five of you. "I'll be pleased with you if you obey me and make the few of you into a whole lot of you.  I'll live among you in the Godhaus and keep my end of our covenant. "BUT," God continued, finally breaking a chain in which Matt can't close quotations because God keeps rambling like he's freakin' John Motherloving Kerry or something, "if you fail to obey me and carry out all of my commandments, I will bring on you sudden terror, diseases that waste away your flesh, and fever that will blind you and rob you of your vitality.  You will pl...