The Daughters of Zelophehad Marry within Their Tribe
1The heads of the ancestral houses of the clan of the sons of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, from the clans of the sons of Joseph, came forward and spoke before Moses and before the leaders, the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelites. 2They said, “Yahweh commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance by lot to the Israelites, and my lord was commanded by Yahweh to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. 3But if they marry any of the men from the other tribes of the Israelites, their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so it will be taken away from the portion allotted to us. 4And when the Jubilee comes for the Israelites, their inheritance will be added permanently to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry, and it will be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.” 5So Moses commanded the Israelites, at Yahweh’s word, “What the tribe of the sons of Joseph says is right. 6This is what Yahweh commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: They may marry whomever they please, provided they marry within a clan of their father’s tribe. 7No inheritance of the Israelites shall pass from tribe to tribe; every Israelite shall hold on to the inheritance of his ancestral tribe. 8And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites must marry someone from a clan of her father’s tribe, so that every Israelite may keep the inheritance of his fathers. 9No inheritance shall pass from one tribe to another; every tribe of the Israelites shall hold on to its own inheritance.” 10The daughters of Zelophehad did just as Yahweh had commanded Moses. 11Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, married their cousins on their father’s side. 12They married within the clans of the sons of Manasseh son of Joseph, so their inheritance remained within the tribe of their father’s clan. 13These are the commandments and the ordinances that Yahweh commanded through Moses to the Israelites on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.
