Numbers 14

¹Then all the congregation raised a loud cry , and the people wept that night .

²And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron . The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt ! Or would that we had died in this wilderness !

³Why is the Lord bringing us into this land , to fall by the sword ? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey . Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt ?

⁴And they said to one another , Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt .

⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel .

⁶And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh , who were among those who had spied out the land , tore their clothes

⁷and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel , The land , which we passed through to spy it out , is an exceedingly good land .

⁸If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey .

⁹Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land , for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.

¹⁰Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones . But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel .

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses , How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?

¹²I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

¹³But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them,

¹⁴and they will tell the inhabitants of this land . They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people . For you, O Lord, are seen face to face , and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night .

¹⁵Now if you kill this people as one man , then the nations who have heard your fame will say ,

¹⁶It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness .

¹⁷And now , please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised , saying ,

¹⁸The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love , forgiving iniquity and transgression , but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children , to the third and the fourth generation.

¹⁹Please pardon the iniquity of this people , according to the greatness of your steadfast love , just as you have forgiven this people , from Egypt until now .

²⁰Then the Lord said , I have pardoned , according to your word .

²¹But truly , as I live , and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,

²²none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness , and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice ,

²³shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers . And none of those who despised me shall see it.

²⁴But my servant Caleb , because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully , I will bring into the land into which he went , and his descendants shall possess it.

²⁵Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys , turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea .

²⁶And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron , saying ,

²⁷How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel , which they grumble against me.

²⁸Say to them, As I live , declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:

²⁹your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness , and of all your number , listed in the census from twenty years old and upward , who have grumbled against me,

³⁰not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell , except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun .

³¹But your little ones , who you said would become a prey , I will bring in , and they shall know the land that you have rejected .

³²But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness .

³³And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness , until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness .

³⁴According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land , forty days , a year for each day , you shall bear your iniquity forty years , and you shall know my displeasure .

³⁵I, the Lord, have spoken . Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end , and there they shall die .

³⁶And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land , who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land —

³⁷the men who brought up a bad report of the land — died by plague before the Lord.

³⁸Of those men who went to spy out the land , only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive .

³⁹When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel , the people mourned greatly .

⁴⁰And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country , saying , Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised , for we have sinned .

⁴¹But Moses said , Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed ?

⁴²Do not go up , for the Lord Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies .

⁴³For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword . Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.

⁴⁴But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country , although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp .

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah .