Numbers 14
1The whole congregation raised their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night.
2All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 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!
3Why is Yahweh bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and little ones will become plunder! Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”
4They said to one another, “Let us appoint a head and return to Egypt.”
5Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the whole assembled congregation of the sons of Israel.
6Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had scouted out the land, tore their clothes.
7They said to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, “The land we traveled through to scout out is very, very good.
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 bread for us. Their shade has left them, and Yahweh is with us. Do not fear them!”
10But the whole congregation said to stone them. Then Yahweh’s glory appeared at the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel.
11Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they refuse to trust me, despite all the signs I have done among them?
12I will strike them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
13Moses said to Yahweh, “The Egyptians will hear, for you brought this people up from among them by your power,
14and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Yahweh, are among this people, that you, Yahweh, appear eye to eye, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
15If you kill this people as one man, the nations who have heard your fame will say,
16‘Because Yahweh was unable to bring this people into the land he swore to them, he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
17Now, please let the Lord’s power be great, as you have spoken:
18‘Yahweh is slow to anger and abundant in steadfast love, bearing away wrongdoing and rebellion, yet he certainly does not leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the wrongdoing of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generations.’
19Please forgive the wrongdoing of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, as you have borne with this people from Egypt until now.”
20Yahweh said, “I have forgiven according to your word.
21Yet as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with Yahweh’s glory,
22none of the men who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice,
23shall see the land I swore to their fathers. None of those who despise 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 he entered, and his offspring shall possess it.
25Now the Amalekites and Canaanites live in the valley. Tomorrow turn and set out into the wilderness by the route toward the Sea of Reeds.”
26Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron:
27“How long must I bear with this evil congregation grumbling against me? I have heard the complaints the sons of Israel are grumbling against me.
28Tell them: As I live—Yahweh’s declaration—I will certainly do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing.
29In this wilderness your corpses shall fall, all of you who were registered, your full number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me.
30You shall certainly not enter the land where I lifted my hand in oath 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. They shall know the land you rejected.
32As for you, your corpses shall fall in this wilderness.
33Your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and bear the consequences of your prostitutions until your corpses are finished in the wilderness.
34According to the number of days you scouted out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your wrongdoing for forty years. You shall know my opposition.
35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will certainly do this to all this evil congregation that has gathered against me. In this wilderness they shall come to their end, and there they shall die.”
36The men whom Moses sent to scout out the land returned and made the whole congregation grumble against him by spreading a bad report about the land.
37Those men who spread the bad report about the land died by a plague before Yahweh.
38But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive from among those men who went to scout out the land.
39Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned deeply.
40Early in the morning they rose and went up toward the top of the hill country, saying, “Here we are! We will go up to the place Yahweh spoke of, for we have sinned.”
41Moses said, “Why are you transgressing Yahweh’s command? This will not succeed.
42Do not go up, for Yahweh is not among you, lest you be defeated before your enemies.
43The Amalekites and Canaanites are there ahead of you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following Yahweh, Yahweh will not be with you.”
44But they presumed to go up toward the top of the hill country. The ark of Yahweh’s covenant and Moses did not leave the camp.
45Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, struck them, and beat them back as far as Hormah.