Numbers 14:9-18

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.'