Numbers 14:17-39

¹⁷Now, Lord, please demonstrate the extent of your power just as you have said:

¹⁸The Lord is slow to become angry and is full of trustworthy love, forgiving sin and rebellion. However, he will not allow the guilty to go unpunished, bringing the consequences of the parents' sin on their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

¹⁹Please forgive the sin of these people since your trustworthy love is so great, in the same way that you have forgiven them from the time they left Egypt until now.”

²⁰“I have forgiven them as you asked,” the Lord replied.

²¹“But even so, as I live and as the whole earth is filled with the Lord's glory,

²²not a single one of the those who saw my glory and the miracles I did in Egypt and in the desert—but provoked me and refused to obey me time and time again—

²³not a single one of them is ever going to see the country I promised to give their forefathers. None of those who rejected me will see it.

²⁴But because my servant Caleb has a totally different spirit and is fully committed to me, I will lead him to the country he visited, and his descendants will own it.

²⁵Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, tomorrow you are to turn around and head back into the desert, taking the route towards the Red Sea.”

²⁶The Lord told Moses and Aaron,

²⁷“How much longer are these wicked people going to criticize me? I've heard what they're saying, making complaints against me.

²⁸Go and tell them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, I'll do just what I heard you say you wanted, believe me!

²⁹All of you will die in this desert, everyone who was registered in the census that counted those aged twenty or over, because you made complaints against me.

³⁰Absolutely none of you will enter the country I promised to give you to live in, except for Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun.

³¹However, I will take your children—those you said would be taken away as plunder—into the country you rejected, and they will appreciate it.

³²But you—you are all going to die in this desert.

³³Your children will wander in the desert for forty years, suffering because of your lack of trust until all your bodies lie buried in the desert.

³⁴Just as you explored the country for forty days, so shall your punishment for your sins be forty years, a year for every day, and you will see what happens when I oppose you.

³⁵I, the Lord, have spoken! Just see if I won't do this to all these wicked Israelites who have got together to oppose me! They will end their lives in the desert—they will die there.’”

³⁶The men that Moses had sent to explore the country—those who came back and because they gave a bad report they made all the Israelites complain against the Lord—

³⁷those men who gave the bad report died before the Lord from plague.

³⁸The only ones who lived were Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh of those who went to explore the country.

³⁹When Moses told the Israelites what the Lord had said they were very, very sad.