Numbers 14
1 The whole community raised their voices and shouted, and the people wept that night.
2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole community said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!
3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
4 They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
5 Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the Israelite community.
6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes.
7 They said to the whole Israelite community, “The land we traveled through to explore is an exceedingly good land.
8 If the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
9 Only, do not rebel against the LORD, and do not fear the people of the land, because they will be our prey. Their protection is gone, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.”
10 But the whole community spoke of stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared in the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.
11 The LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?
12 I will strike them with a plague and disinherit them, and I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they are.”
13 Moses said to the LORD, “The Egyptians will hear about it, because by your power you brought this people up from among them.
14 They will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, LORD, are among this people; that you, LORD, are seen face to face; that your cloud rests over them; and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire.
15 If you kill this people as one man, the nations that have heard of you will say:
16 ‘Because the LORD was unable to bring this people into the land he swore to give them, he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
17 Now, then, let the power of the Lord be great, as you have spoken:
18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and rich in steadfast love; he forgives iniquity and rebellion, but he does not leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children, to the third and fourth generation.’
19 Please 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.”
20 The LORD replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked.
21 But as surely as I live, the glory of the LORD will fill the whole earth.
22 All the men who have seen my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness have tested me ten times already and have not listened to my voice.
23 They will not see the land I swore to their ancestors. None of those who despise me will see it.”
24 “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land he entered, and his descendants will possess it.
25 The Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley. Tomorrow, turn around and set out for the wilderness by way of the Sea of Reeds.”
26 The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron:
27 “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites, as they grumble against me.
28 Tell them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly what you have said in my hearing.
29 Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all of you who were counted in the census, according to your full number, from twenty years old and up, who have grumbled against me.
30 You will not enter the land where I raised my hand in an oath to settle you, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
31 But your children, whom you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring in, and they will come to know the land you rejected.
32 As for you, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.
33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and bear the consequences of your unfaithfulness, until your bodies are consumed in the wilderness.
34 For the number of days you explored the land—forty days—you will bear your guilt for forty years, one year for each day, and you will know my rejection.’”
35 “‘I, the LORD, have spoken. I will certainly do this to the whole wicked community that has gathered against me: they will be consumed in this wilderness, and there they will die.’”
36 The men Moses had sent to explore the land returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about the land.
37 Those men who spread the bad report about the land died of a plague before the LORD.
38 But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived among those men who had gone to explore the land.
39 Moses told all the Israelites these words, and the people mourned greatly.
40 They got up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Here we are; we will go up to the place the LORD spoke about, because we have sinned.”
41 Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed.
42 Do not go up, because the LORD is not among you; otherwise, you will be defeated by your enemies.
43 The Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. Since you have turned away from following the LORD, the LORD will not be with you.”
44 Even so, they dared to go up to the top of the mountain, but the ark of the LORD’s covenant and Moses did not leave the middle of the camp.
45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived on that mountain came down, struck them, and crushed them as far as Hormah.
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