Numbers 14:19-45

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.

²⁸Say to them, 'As I live,' says Yahweh, 'as you have spoken in my hearing, I will do this to you:

²⁹Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all you who complained against me, you who were counted in the census, the whole number of the people from twenty years old and upward.

³⁰You will certainly not go into the land that I promised to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³¹But your little ones who you said would be victims, I will take them into the land. They will experience the land that you have rejected!

³²As for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness.

³³Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years. They must bear the consequences of your acts of rebellion until the end of your corpses in the wilderness.

³⁴Just as the number of the days during which you examined the land—forty days, you must likewise bear the consequences of your sins for forty years—one year for every day, and you must know what it is like for me to oppose you.

³⁵I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will certainly do this to all this evil community that is gathered together against me. They will be completely cut off, and here they will die.'”

³⁶So the men Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made the entire community grumble against Moses by spreading a bad report about the land—

³⁷these men who had brought out a bad report about the land were struck down, and they died of a plague before Yahweh.

³⁸Of those men who had gone to spy out the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive.

³⁹When Moses reported these words to all the people of Israel, they mourned very deeply.

⁴⁰They rose up early in the morning and went to the top of the mountain and said, “Look, we are here, and we will go to the place that Yahweh has promised, for we have sinned.”

⁴¹But Moses said, “Why are you now violating Yahweh's command? You will not succeed.

⁴²Do not go, because Yahweh is not with you to prevent you from being defeated by your enemies.

⁴³The Amalekites and Canaanites are there, and you will die by the sword because you turned back from following Yahweh. So he will not be with you.”

⁴⁴But they presumed to go up into the hill country; however, neither Moses nor the ark of the covenant of Yahweh left the camp.

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites came down, and also the Canaanites who lived on those hills. They attacked the Israelites and defeated them all the way to Hormah.