Numbers 14

¹So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night.

²And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and 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!

³Why has the Lord

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

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

⁶But 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 they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: “The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.

⁸If the Lord

⁹Only do not rebel against the Lord

¹⁰And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Now the glory of the Lord

¹¹Then the Lord

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

¹³And Moses said to the Lord

¹⁴and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord

¹⁵Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying,

¹⁶‘Because the Lord

¹⁷And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying,

¹⁸‘The Lord

¹⁹Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

²⁰Then the Lord

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

²²because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice,

²³they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.

²⁴But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.

²⁵Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley; tomorrow turn and move out into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.”

²⁶And the Lord

²⁷“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me.

²⁸Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord

²⁹The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.

³⁰Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.

³¹But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.

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

³³And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness.

³⁴According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection.

³⁵I the Lord

³⁶Now the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land,

³⁷those very men who brought the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord

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

³⁹Then Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

⁴⁰And they 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 which the Lord

⁴¹And Moses said, “Now why do you transgress the command of the Lord

⁴²Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the Lord

⁴³For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the Lord

⁴⁴But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them, and drove them back as far as Hormah.