Numbers 14:16-42

¹⁶Because Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land that he had sworn unto them, he has therefore slain them in the wilderness.

¹⁷And now, I beseech thee, let the power of the Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,

¹⁸Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in goodness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth generation.

¹⁹Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy loving-kindness, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.

²⁰And Jehovah said, I have pardoned according to thy word.

²¹But as surely as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah!

²²for all those men who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice,

²³shall in no wise see the land which I did swear unto their fathers: none of them that despised me shall see it.

²⁴But my servant Caleb, because he hath another spirit in him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he came; and his seed shall possess it.

²⁵(Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley.) To-morrow turn you, and take your journey into the wilderness, on the way to the Red sea.

²⁶And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

²⁷How long shall I bear with this evil assembly, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.

²⁸Say unto them, As surely as I live, saith Jehovah, if I do not do unto you as ye have spoken in mine ears!

²⁹In this wilderness shall your carcases fall; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number from twenty years old and upwards, who have murmured against me,

³⁰shall in no wise come into the land, concerning which I have lifted up my hand to make you dwell in it; save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

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

³²And as to you, your carcases shall fall in this wilderness.

³³And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

³⁴After the number of the days in which ye have searched out the land, forty days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities forty years, and ye shall know mine estrangement from you.

³⁵I Jehovah have spoken; I will surely do it unto all this evil assembly which have gathered together against me! in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

³⁶And the men whom Moses had sent to search out the land, who returned, and made the whole assembly to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report upon the land,

³⁷even those men who had brought up an evil report upon the land, died by a plague before Jehovah.

³⁸But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, lived still of the men that had gone to search out the land.

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

⁴⁰And they rose up early in the morning, and went up to the hill-top, saying, Here are we, and we will go up to the place of which Jehovah has spoken; for we have sinned.

⁴¹And Moses said, Why now do ye transgress the commandment of Jehovah? but it shall not prosper!

⁴²Go not up, for Jehovah is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies;