21 When Kena’ani (Canaanite) king of Arad who lived by the wilderness, heard that Yisrael (Israel) was coming on the Atarim road, he attacked them and captured some prisoners.[ref] 2 Then the Israelis promised Yahweh, “If you help us defeat them, then we’ll completely destroy their towns (instead of looting them) as a way of offering them to you.” 3 Yahweh listened to what they said and enabled them to defeat those Kena’anim (Canaanites), then they dedicated the towns to Yahweh and destroyed them, and they named that area ‘Hormah’ (which means ‘Destruction’).

4 Then they all left Mt. Hor by the road going towards the Red Sea to go around Edom,[ref] but the people became impatient on the way 5 and they started to grumble against God and against Mosheh (Moses), “Why did you two bring us out of Mitsrayim (Egypt) just to die in the wilderness, because there’s no bread and no water, and our insides detest that tasteless ‘stuff’?”[ref] 6 So Yahweh sent poisonous snakes into the people, and many Israelis were bitten and died.

7 The people came to Mosheh and begged, “We’ve done wrong by speaking out against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh for us to get him to take the snakes away.” So Mosheh prayed on the peoples’ behalf, 8 and Yahweh told him, “Make a model of a snake and put it up on a pole, and so that anyone who gets bitten, can see it and live.” 9 So Mosheh made a snake out of bronze and attached it to the top of a pole,[ref] and anyone who was bitten by a snake would recover when they looked towards the bronze snake.