Numbers 14:5-39

⁵And when this was heard, Moses and Aaron fell down low to the earth, before all the multitude of the sons of Israel.

⁶And soothly Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, which also compassed the land, rent their clothes,

⁷and they spake thus to all the multitude of the sons of Israel, The land which we compassed is full good;

⁸if the Lord is merciful to us, he shall lead us into it, and he shall give us the land flowing with milk and honey.

⁹Do not ye rebel against the Lord, neither dread ye the people of this land, for we be able to devour them so as bread; all their help hath passed away from them, the Lord is with us, do not ye dread.

¹⁰And when all the multitude cried, and would have oppressed them with stones, the glory of the Lord appeared upon the roof of the bond of peace, while all the sons of Israel saw.

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, How long shall this people backbite me, or mis-deem me? How long shall they not believe to me, in all the signs which I have done before them?

¹²Therefore I shall smite them with pestilence, and I shall waste them; soothly I shall make thee prince upon a greater folk, and stronger than is this.

¹³And Moses said to the Lord, The Egyptians hear not, from whose middle thou leddest out this people,

¹⁴and the dwellers of this land, which heard that thou, Lord, art in this people, and art seen face to face, and that thy cloud defendeth them, and that thou goest before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night,

¹⁵that thou hast slain so great a multitude as one man, and say,

¹⁶He might not bring this people into the land for which he swore to give to them, therefore he killed them in wilderness;

¹⁷therefore the strength of the Lord be magnified, or made great, as thou hast sworn,

¹⁸The Lord is patient, and of much mercy, doing away wickedness and trespasses, and leaving no man unguilty, which visitest the sins of fathers into sons into the third and fourth generation,

¹⁹I beseech thee, forgive thou the sin of this thy people, after the greatness of thy mercy, as thou were merciful to them going out of Egypt till to this place.

²⁰And the Lord said, I have forgiven to them, by thy word.

²¹And as soothly I live; and the glory of the Lord shall be filled in all the earth;

²²nevertheless all the men that saw my majesty, and my signs, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now by ten times, and obeyed not to my voice,

²³shall not see the land for which I swore to their fathers, neither any of them that backbited me, shall see it.

²⁴I shall lead my servant Caleb, that was full of another spirit and followed me, into this land, which he compassed, and his seed shall wield it.

²⁵For Amalek and Canaanites dwell in the valleys, tomorrow move ye the tents, and turn ye again into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.

²⁶And the Lord spake to Moses and to Aaron, and said,

²⁷How long grutcheth this worst multitude against me? I have heard the grutching complaints of the sons of Israel.

²⁸Therefore say thou to them, I live, saith the Lord; as ye spake while I heard, so I shall do to you;

²⁹your carrions, or dead bodies, shall lie in this wilderness. All ye that be numbered, from twenty years and above, and have grutched against me,

³⁰shall not enter into the land, upon which I have raised mine hand, that I should make you to dwell there, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun.

³¹Forsooth I shall lead in your little children, of which ye said that they should be preys, either ravens, to enemies, that they see the land which displeased you.

³²Forsooth your carrions shall lie in the wilderness;

³³your sons shall be walkers-about in the desert by forty years, and they shall bear your fornication, till the carrions of their fathers be wasted in desert,

³⁴by the number of forty days, in which ye beheld the land; a year shall be reckoned for a day, and by forty years ye shall receive your wickedness, or be punished for your grutching, and ye shall know my vengeance.

³⁵For as I spake, so I shall do to all this worst multitude, that rose together against me; it shall fail, and shall die in this wilderness.

³⁶Therefore all the men which Moses had sent to see the land, and which turned again, and made all the multitude to grutch against him, and depraved the land,

³⁷that it was evil, were dead, and smitten in the sight of the Lord.

³⁸Soothly Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, lived, of all the men, that went to see the land.

³⁹And Moses spake all these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.