Israel is traveling by a difficult wilderness route around the land of Edom. The people become impatient and speak against God and Moses.

They question why they were brought out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. They complain about the lack of food and water and express disgust with the food they have been receiving.

Poisonous serpents come among the people, and many Israelites are bitten and die. The community comes to Moses and acknowledges that they have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against him.

They ask Moses to pray for the serpents to be taken away. Moses intercedes.

Instead of simply removing the danger, God tells Moses to make a serpent and place it on a pole. Anyone who has been bitten can look at it and live.

Moses makes a bronze serpent and raises it. When a bitten person looks at the bronze serpent, that person survives.

The story is unusually compact, but its later biblical afterlife is significant. In 2 Kings the bronze object itself eventually becomes an improper object of worship and is destroyed by Hezekiah. In John’s Gospel, the image of the serpent being lifted up becomes a comparison for Jesus’ own lifting up.