Numbers 14:3-16

³Would God that we had died in Egypt and would God we may die in this vast wilderness, and that the Lord may not bring us into this land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led away captives. Is it not better to return into Egypt?

⁴And they said one to another: Let us appoint a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

⁵And when Moses and Aaron heard this, they fell down flat upon the ground before the multitude of the children of Israel.

⁶But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone, who themselves also had viewed the land, rent their garments,

⁷And said to all the multitude of the children of Israel: The land which we have gone round is very good:

⁸If the Lord be favourable, he will bring us into it, and give us a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁹Be not rebellious against the Lord: and fear ye not the people of this land, for we are able to eat them up as bread. All aid is gone from them: the Lord is with us, fear ye not.

¹⁰And when all the multitude cried out, and would have stoned them, the glory of the Lord appeared over the tabernacle of the covenant to all the children of Israel.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses: How long will this people detract me? how long will they not believe me for all the signs that I have wrought before them?

¹²I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them: but thee I will make a ruler over a great nation, and a mightier than this is.

¹³And Moses said to the Lord: That the Egyptians, from the midst of whom thou hast brought forth this people,

¹⁴And the inhabitants of this land, (who have heard that thou, O Lord, art among this people, and art seen face to face, and thy cloud protecteth them, and thou goest before them in a pillar of a cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night,)

¹⁵May hear that thou hast killed so great a multitude as it were one man and may say:

¹⁶He could not bring the people into the land for which he had sworn, therefore did he kill them in the wilderness.