Numbers 14:3-23

³Why is the Lord taking us into this land to come to our death by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will get into strange hands: would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?

⁴And they said to one another, Let us make a captain over us, and go back to Egypt.

⁵Then Moses and Aaron went down on their faces before the meeting of the people.

⁶And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, two of those who had been to see the land, giving signs of grief,

⁷Said to all the children of Israel, This land which we went through to see is a very good land.

⁸And if the Lord has delight in us, he will take us into this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁹Only, do not go against the Lord or go in fear of the people of the land, for they will be our food; their strength has been taken from them and the Lord is with us: have no fear of them.

¹⁰But all the people said they were to be stoned. Then the glory of the Lord was seen in the Tent of meeting, before the eyes of all the children of Israel.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people have no respect for me? how long will they be without faith, in the face of all the signs I have done among them?

¹²I will send disease on them for their destruction, and take away their heritage, and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

¹³And Moses said to the Lord, Then it will come to the ears of the Egyptians; for by your power you took this people out from among them;

¹⁴And they will give the news to the people of this land: they have had word that you, Lord, are present with this people, letting yourself be seen face to face, and that your cloud is resting over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if you put to death all this people as one man, then the nations who have had word of your glory will say,

¹⁶Because the Lord was not able to take this people into the land which he made an oath to give them, he sent destruction on them in the waste land.

¹⁷So now, may my prayer come before you, and let the power of the Lord be great, as you said:

¹⁸The Lord is slow to wrath and great in mercy, overlooking wrongdoing and evil, and will not let wrongdoers go free; sending punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation.

¹⁹May the sin of this people have forgiveness, in the measure of your great mercy, as you have had mercy on them from Egypt up till now.

²⁰And the Lord said, I have had mercy, as you say:

²¹But truly, as I am living, and as all the earth will be full of the glory of the Lord;

²²Because all these men, having seen my glory and the signs which I have done in Egypt and in the waste land, still have put me to the test ten times, and have not given ear to my voice;

²³They will not see the land about which I made an oath to their fathers; not one of these by whom I have not been honoured will see it.