Numbers 14:4-26

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

⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

⁶And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of them that spied out the land, rent their clothes:

⁷and they spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land.

⁸If Jehovah delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it unto us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.

⁹Only rebel not against Jehovah, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is removed from over them, and Jehovah is with us: fear them not.

¹⁰But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of Jehovah appeared in the tent of meeting unto all the children of Israel.

¹¹And Jehovah said unto Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have wrought among them?

¹²I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they.

¹³And Moses said unto Jehovah, Then the Egyptians will hear it; for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;

¹⁴and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that thou Jehovah art in the midst of this people; for thou Jehovah art seen face to face, and thy cloud standeth over them, and thou goest before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if thou shalt kill this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,

¹⁶Because Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness.

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

¹⁸Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

¹⁹Pardon, I pray thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy lovingkindness, and according as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.

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

²¹but in very deed, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah;

²²because all those men that have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;

²³surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that despised me see it:

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

²⁵Now the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley: to-morrow turn ye, and get you into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.

²⁶And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,