Numbers 14:1-45
14 * And all the congregation raised their voices in chorus, and the people wept that night.
2 And all the sons of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron; and all the congregation said to them “If only we had died in Egypt, or if only it had been in this wilderness!
3 and why is Jehovah bringing us into this country to fall in warfare? Our wives and our children will be taken as plunder. Is it not best for us to go back to Egypt?”
4 And they said to each other “Let us elect a chief and go back to Egypt.”
5 And Moses and Aaron threw themselves down on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel;
6 and Joshuaʽ the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had reconnoitered the country, tore their clothes
7 and said to all the congregation of the sons of Israel “The country we went through to reconnoiter it is a very good country indeed.
8 If Jehovah likes us he will bring us into this country and give it to us, a country that runs milk and honey.
9 * Only do not break your allegiance to Jehovah, and do not you be afraid of the people of the country, because they are for us to eat up: their shelter is gone, and Jehovah is with us; do not be afraid of them.”
10 But all the congregation proposed to stone them.
And Jehovah’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the sons of Israel;
11 and Jehovah said to Moses “How long are this people to be contemptuous of me? how long are they to have no confidence in me, with all the tokens I have done among them?
12 I will strike them with a pestilence and disclaim them and make you into a nation greater and more numerous than they.”
13 * But Moses said to Jehovah “And have the Egyptians hear, when you brought this people up from among them by your power!
14 and all the inhabitants of this country too have heard that you, Jehovah, are in the midst of this people as you, Jehovah, are seen eye to eye, and your cloud stands over them, and in a pillar of cloud you, Jehovah, go before them by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15 Kill all this people like one man, and the nations that have heard tell of you will say
16 ‘Because Jehovah was unable to bring this people into the country he had sworn to them he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
17 Now be your power great, Lord, as you promised in your words
18 ‘Jehovah is patient and very friendly, pardoning guilt and crime but not acquitting an offender, visiting fathers’ guilt on children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren’;
19 forgive this people’s guilt in accordance with the greatness of your friendliness and with the way you have pardoned this people from Egypt to here.”
20 And Jehovah said “I forgive as you ask;
21 but by my life all the earth shall be filled with Jehovah’s glory,
22 because none of the men that saw my glory and my tokens that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tried me out these ten times and not obeyed me,
23 shall see the country I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who treated me with contempt see it;
24 ** but my servant Caleb, because he was governed by another spirit and altogether followed me, I will bring into the country into which he went, and his descendants shall take possession of it.
25 But the ʽAmalekites and the Canaanites live in the vale; tomorrow turn round and march into the wilderness toward the Red Sea.”
26 And Jehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying
27 * “How long will this vicious company have its way of complaining against me? I hear the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they bring against me.
28 Say to them, By my life, quoth Jehovah, as you have said in my hearing, so I will do to you:
29 in this wilderness your corpses shall fall, all your muster, your whole number, from twenty years old up, who have complained against me:
30 * you shall not go into the country I pledged myself to settle you in, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshuaʽ the son of Nun.
31 But your children, who you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring in, and they shall know the country you refused;
32 but your own corpses shall fall in this wilderness.
33 And your sons shall be sheep-and-cattle men in the wilderness forty years, and bear the penalty for your wantoning, till your corpses are all down in the wilderness.
34 To the number of the days you were reconnoitering the country, forty days, a day to a year, you shall bear the penalty for your offenses forty years, and know my antagonism.
35 I, Jehovah, declare that this I will do to all this vicious company that have combined against me: in this wilderness they shall all wear away and there they shall die.”
36 And the men whom Moses had sent to reconnoiter the country, and who had come back and set all the congregation to complain against him, telling tales about the country,—
37 the men, those who had told malicious tales about the country, died by a stroke before Jehovah.
38 But Joshuaʽ the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who had gone to reconnoiter the country.
39 And Moses stated all this to all the sons of Israel, and all the people mourned deeply.
40 And the first thing in the morning they went up to the crest of the mountain, saying “Here we are; we will go up to the place Jehovah said, for we were wrong.”
41 And Moses said “What are you violating Jehovah’s charge for? this will not be successful.
42 Do not go up, because Jehovah is not among you and you would get beaten by your enemies.
43 For you have the ʽAmalekites and the Canaanites before you there, and you would fall in warfare, seeing that you had turned back from following Jehovah and Jehovah would not be with you.”
44 But they recklessly went up to the crest of the mountain, while the ark of Jehovah’s covenant and Moses did not move from within the camp;
45 and the ʽAmalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that highland came down and defeated them and pounded them up clear to Hormah.
Footnotes
^ 14:1 Lit. raised and gave their voices, and
^ 14:9 Lit. because they are our bread; their shadow is gone away from over them
^ 14:13 Codd. will hear that or will hear, because
^ 14:24 Lit. he had another spirit with him
^ 14:24 Var. my spirit
^ 14:27 (have . . . me) Susp.
^ 14:30 Lit. I raised my hand to settle you in
