Numbers 14

1Then all the congregation raised their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night.

2And all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!”

3And why is Yahweh bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?

4And they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”

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

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

7And they said to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, “The land through which we passed to spy it out is an exceedingly good land.”

8If Yahweh delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land flowing with milk and honey.

9Only, do not rebel against Yahweh. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from over them, and Yahweh is with us. Do not fear them.

10But all the congregation said to stone them with stones, and the glory of Yahweh appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel.

11And Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people treat me with contempt? And how long will they not believe in me, despite all the signs that I have done among them?”

12I will strike him with the plague and dispossess him, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than he.

13But Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear, for by your power you brought up this people from among them.”

14And they will tell the inhabitants of this land, who have heard that you, Yahweh, are in the midst of this people, that you, Yahweh, 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.

15And if you kill this people as one man, then the nations that have heard your report will say,

16Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he slaughtered them in the wilderness.

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

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

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

20And Yahweh said, “I have forgiven, according to your word.”

21But as I live, the glory of Yahweh will fill all the earth.

22For all the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tested me these ten times and have not listened to my voice—

23they certainly shall not see the land that I swore to their fathers, and none of those who despised me shall see it.

24But my servant Caleb, because a different spirit was with him and he followed me fully, I will bring him into the land where he went, and his offspring will possess it.

25The Amalekites and the Canaanites are living in the valley. Tomorrow turn and set out for yourselves into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.

26And Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

27How long shall this evil congregation grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are grumbling against me.

28Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, surely just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will do to you.’

29In this wilderness your dead bodies will fall, all of you who were counted according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me.

30Surely you shall not come into the land in which I raised my hand to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

31But your little ones, whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will know the land that you rejected.

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

33And your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will bear your acts of sexual unfaithfulness until your dead bodies are finished off in the wilderness.

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

35I, Yahweh, have spoken. Surely I will do this to all this evil congregation who have gathered together against me: in this wilderness they will come to an end, and there they will die.

36The men whom Moses sent to scout out the land returned and caused the whole congregation to grumble against him by bringing out a bad report about the land.

37those men who had brought out a bad report about the land died by the plague before Yahweh.

38But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive from among those men who had gone to spy out the land.

39Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

40They rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that Yahweh has spoken of, for we have sinned.”

41But Moses said, “Why is this that you are transgressing the command of Yahweh? It will not succeed.”

42Do not go up, for Yahweh is not among you, so that you may not be struck down before your enemies.

43For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword, because you have turned back from following Yahweh, and Yahweh will not be with you.

44But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain, though the ark of the covenant of Yahweh and Moses did not move from the midst of the camp.

45Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah.