The Laws about Married Women and Land

1One day the family leaders from the Gilead clan of the Manasseh tribe went to Moses and the other family leaders of Israel 2 and said, “Sir, the Lord has said that he will show+ what land each tribe will receive as their own. And the Lord has commanded you to give the daughters of our relative Zelophehad+ the land that he would have received. 3But if they marry men from other tribes of Israel, the land they receive will become part of that tribe's inheritance and will no longer belong to us. 4Even when land is returned to its original owner in the Year of Celebration,+ we will not get back Zelophehad's land—it will belong to the tribe into which his daughters married.”

5So Moses told the people that the Lord had said:

These men from the Manasseh tribe are right. 6I will allow Zelophehad's daughters to marry anyone, as long as those men belong to one of the clans of the Manasseh tribe.

7Tribal land must not be given to another tribe—it will remain the property of the tribe that received it. 8-9In the future, any daughter who inherits land must marry someone from her own tribe. Israel's tribal land is never to be passed from one tribe to another.

10-11Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah the daughters of Zelophehad obeyed the Lord and married their uncles' sons 12and remained part of the Manasseh tribe. So their land stayed in their father's clan.

13These are the laws that the Lord gave to Moses and the Israelites while they were camped in the lowlands of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho.