Numbers 14:7-36

⁷They spoke to all the community of the people of Israel. They said, “The land that we passed through and examined is a very good land.

⁸If Yahweh is pleased with us, then he will take us into this land and give it to us. The land flows with milk and honey.

⁹But do not rebel against Yahweh, and do not fear the people in the land, for they are bread to us. Their protection will be removed from them, because Yahweh is with us. Do not fear them.”

¹⁰Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of Yahweh appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.

¹¹Yahweh said to Moses, “How long must this people despise me? How long must they fail to trust me, despite all the signs of my power that I have done among them?

¹²I will attack them with plague, disinherit them, and make from your own clan a nation that will be greater and mightier than they are.”

¹³Moses said to Yahweh, “If you do this, then the Egyptians will hear about it, because you rescued this people from them by your power.

¹⁴They will tell it to this land's inhabitants. They have heard that you, Yahweh, are present with this people, because you are seen face to face. Your cloud stands over our people. You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations that have heard of your fame will speak and say,

¹⁶'Because Yahweh could not take this people into the land that he swore to give them, he has killed them in the wilderness.'

¹⁷Now, I beg you, use your great power. For you have said,

¹⁸'Yahweh is slow to anger and abundant in covenant faithfulness. He forgives iniquity and transgression. He will by no means clear the guilty when he brings the punishment of the ancestors' sin on their descendants, to the third and fourth generation.'

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—