Numbers 14:14-27

¹⁴They will tell it to this land's inhabitants. They have heard that you, Yahweh, are present with this people, because you are seen face to face. Your cloud stands over our people. You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations that have heard of your fame will speak and say,

¹⁶'Because Yahweh could not take this people into the land that he swore to give them, he has killed them in the wilderness.'

¹⁷Now, I beg you, use your great power. For you have said,

¹⁸'Yahweh is slow to anger and abundant in covenant faithfulness. He forgives iniquity and transgression. He will by no means clear the guilty when he brings the punishment of the ancestors' sin on their descendants, to the third and fourth generation.'

¹⁹Pardon, I plead with you, this people's sin because of the greatness of your covenant faithfulness, just as you have always forgiven this people from the time they were in Egypt until now.”

²⁰Yahweh said, “I have pardoned them in keeping with your request,

²¹but truly, as I live, and as all the earth will be filled with my glory,

²²all those people who saw my glory and the signs of power that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness—they have still tempted me these ten times and have not listened to my voice.

²³So I say that they will certainly not see the land about which I made an oath to their ancestors. Not one of them who despised me will see it,

²⁴except for my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit. He has followed me fully; I will bring him into the land which he went to examine. His descendants will possess it.

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

²⁶Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron. He said,

²⁷“How long must I tolerate this evil community that criticizes me? I have heard the complaining of the people of Israel against me.