Week 194 · about 45 minutes
Numbers 35
Numbers 35 · Memory verse Numbers 35:2
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Numbers 35), the matching word search and answer key (Numbers 35 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a smooth stone
Hold a smooth stone. Read Numbers 35 in about four minutes, stopping at Numbers 35:2: ““Command the children of Israel to give to the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in. You shall give suburbs for the cities around them to the Levites.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Numbers 35?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Numbers 35 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “Yahweh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “Or if he struck him with a weapon of wood in the hand, by which a man may die, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall surely be put to death.” Numbers 35 opens with these words: “Yahweh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,” The line to keep is Numbers 35:2: ““Command the children of Israel to give to the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in. You shall give suburbs for the cities around…” Carry the word “command” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Numbers 35:2: ““Command the children of Israel to give to the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in. You shall give suburbs for the cities around them to the Levites.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Numbers 35? Then try this: Read ““Command the children of Israel to give to the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Numbers 35. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Numbers 35:2. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Numbers 35 and write Numbers 35:2 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Numbers 35:2
““Command the children of Israel to give to the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in. You shall give suburbs for the cities around them to the Levites.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Numbers 35. Help us remember Numbers 35:2 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.