Numbers 14

1. And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried. And the people wept that night.

2. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole congregation said to them, “Oh that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or, Oh that we had died in the wilderness!

3. And why has the LORD brought us into this land to fall by the sword so that our wives and our children should be a prey? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

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

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

6. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those that searched the land, tore their clothes.

7. And they spoke to all the company of the children of Israel saying, “The land which we passed through to scout out is an exceedingly good land.

8. If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey.

9. Only do not rebel against the LORD, neither fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.”

10. But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.

11. And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people provoke Me? And how long will it be before they believe Me, for all the signs which I have shown among them?

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

13. And Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear, for You have brought up this people in Your might from among them.

14. And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, LORD, are among this people, Who is seen eye to eye. You are the LORD, 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.

15. And will You kill this people as one man? Then the nations who have heard Your fame will speak, saying,

16. ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which He swore to them, therefore He has slain them in the wilderness.’

17. And now, I beseech You, let the power of my LORD be great, according as You have spoken, saying,

18. ‘The LORD is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation.’

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

20. And the LORD said, “I have pardoned according to your word.

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

22. Because all those men who have seen My glory and My miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice,

23. Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it.

24. But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land into which he went. And his children shall possess it.

25. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites lived in the valley.) Tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”

26. And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

27. “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation which murmurs against Me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel which they murmur against Me.

28. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘as you have spoken in My ears, so I will do to you.

29. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against Me,

30. You shall certainly not come into the land which I swore to make you dwell in, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

31. But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, I will bring them in and they shall know the land which you have despised.

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

33. And your children shall feed in the wilderness forty years and bear your whoredoms until your dead carcasses have been consumed in the wilderness.

34. According to the number of the days in which you searched the land—forty days—each day for a year you shall bear your iniquities, forty years; and you shall know My displeasure of this generation.

35. I the LORD have spoken it; I will surely do it to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. They shall be destroyed in this wilderness, and there they shall die.’ ”

36. And the men whom Moses sent to scout out the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report upon the land,

37. Even those men that brought up the evil report upon the land died by the plague before the LORD.

38. But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of the men that went to scout out the land, lived.

39. And Moses told these sayings to all the children of Israel. And the people mourned greatly.

40. And they rose up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Behold we are here, and will go up to the place which the LORD has promised, for we have sinned.”

41. And Moses said, “Why do you now go beyond the command of the LORD, when it shall not succeed?

42. Do not go up, for the LORD is not among you. And shall you not be struck down by your enemies?

43. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.”

44. But they presumed to go up to the hill top. However, the ark of the covenant of the LORD and Moses did not leave the camp.

45. And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who were living in that mountain came down, and struck them down, and beat them back to Hormah.