Numbers 14–15

The People Complain

14All night long the people cried out in distress. ²They complained against Moses and Aaron, and said, “It would have been better to die in Egypt or even here in the wilderness! ³Why is the Lord taking us into that land? We will be killed in battle, and our wives and children will be captured. Wouldn’t it be better to go back to Egypt?” ⁴So they said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt!”

⁵Then Moses and Aaron bowed to the ground in front of all the people. ⁶And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the spies, tore their clothes in sorrow ⁷and said to the people, “The land we explored is an excellent land. ⁸If the Lord is pleased with us, he will take us there and give us that rich and fertile land. ^9*Do not rebel against the Lord and don’t be afraid of the people who live there. We will conquer them easily. The Lord is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don’t be afraid.” ¹⁰The whole community was threatening to stone them to death, but suddenly the people saw the dazzling light of the Lord’s presence appear over the tent.

Moses Prays for the People

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, “How much longer will these people reject me? How much longer will they refuse to trust in me, even though I have performed so many miracles among them? ¹²I will send an epidemic and destroy them, but I will make you the father of a nation that is larger and more powerful than they are!”

^13*But Moses said to the Lord, “You brought these people out of Egypt by your power. When the Egyptians hear what you have done to your people, ^14*they will tell it to the people who live in this land. These people have already heard that you, Lord, are with us, that you are plainly seen when your cloud stops over us, and that you go before us in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. ^15*Now if you kill all your people, the nations who have heard of your fame will say ^16*that you killed your people in the wilderness because you were not able to bring them into the land you promised to give them. ^17*So now Lord, I pray, show us your power and do what you promised when you said, ^18*‘I, the Lord, am not easily angered, and I show great love and faithfulness and forgive sin and rebellion. Yet I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.’ ^19*And now, Lord, according to the greatness of your unchanging love, forgive, I pray, the sin of these people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”

²⁰The Lord answered, “I will forgive them, as you have asked. ^21*But I promise that as surely as I live and as surely as my presence fills the earth, ^22*none of these people will live to enter that land. They have seen the dazzling light of my presence and the miracles that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have tried my patience over and over again and have refused to obey me. ^23*They will never enter the land which I promised to their ancestors. None of those who have rejected me will ever enter it. ^24*But because my servant Caleb has a different attitude and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land which he explored, and his descendants will possess the land ²⁵in whose valleys the Amalekites and the Canaanites now live. Turn back tomorrow and go into the wilderness in the direction of the Gulf of Aqaba.”

The Punishes the People for Complaining

²⁶The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ²⁷“How much longer are these wicked people going to complain against me? I have heard enough of these complaints! ²⁸Now give them this answer: ‘I swear that as surely as I live, I will do to you just what you have asked. I, the Lord, have spoken. ^29*You will die and your corpses will be scattered across this wilderness. Because you have complained against me, none of you over twenty years of age will enter that land. ³⁰I promised to let you live there, but not one of you will, except Caleb and Joshua. ³¹You said that your children would be captured, but I will bring them into the land that you rejected, and it will be their home. ³²You will die here in this wilderness. ^33*Your children will wander in the wilderness for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last one of you dies. ³⁴You will suffer the consequences of your sin for forty years, one year for each of the forty days you spent exploring the land. You will know what it means to have me against you! ³⁵I swear that I will do this to you wicked people who have gathered together against me. Here in the wilderness every one of you will die. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”

^36–37The men Moses had sent to explore the land brought back a false report which caused the people to complain against the Lord. And so the Lord struck them with a disease, and they died. ³⁸Of the twelve spies only Joshua and Caleb survived.

The First Attempt to Invade the Land

³⁹When Moses told the Israelites what the Lord had said, they mourned bitterly. ⁴⁰Early the next morning they started out to invade the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go to the place which the Lord told us about. We admit that we have sinned.”

⁴¹But Moses said, “Then why are you disobeying the Lord now? You will not succeed! ⁴²Don’t go. The Lord is not with you, and your enemies will defeat you. ⁴³When you face the Amalekites and the Canaanites, you will die in battle; the Lord will not be with you, because you have refused to follow him.”

⁴⁴Yet they still dared to go up into the hill country, even though neither the Lord’s Covenant Box nor Moses left the camp. ⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived there attacked and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hormah.

Laws about Sacrifice

15The Lord gave Moses ²the following regulations for the people of Israel to observe in the land that he was going to give them. ³A bull, a ram, a sheep, or a goat may be presented to the Lord as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice in fulfilment of a vow or as a freewill offering or as an offering at your regular religious festivals; the smell of these food offerings is pleasing to the Lord. ^4–5Whoever presents a sheep or a goat as a burnt offering to the Lord is to bring with each animal a kilogramme of flour mixed with a litre of olive oil as a grain offering, together with a litre of wine. ⁶When a ram is offered, 2 kilogrammes of flour mixed with one and a half litres of olive oil are to be presented as a grain offering, ⁷together with one and a half litres of wine. The smell of these sacrifices is pleasing to the Lord. ⁸When a bull is offered to the Lord as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice in fulfilment of a vow or as a fellowship offering, ⁹a grain offering of 3 kilogrammes of flour mixed with 2 litres of olive oil is to be presented, ¹⁰together with 2 litres of wine. The smell of this sacrifice is pleasing to the Lord.

¹¹That is what shall be offered with each bull, ram, sheep, or goat. ¹²When more than one animal is offered, the accompanying offering is to be increased proportionately. ¹³All native Israelites are to do this when they present a food offering, a smell pleasing to the Lord. ¹⁴And if at any time foreigners living among you, whether on a temporary or a permanent basis, make a food offering, a smell that pleases the Lord, they are to observe the same regulations. ¹⁵For all time to come, the same^m rules are binding on you and on the foreigners who live among you. You and they are alike in the Lord’s sight; ^16*the same laws and regulations apply to you and to them.

¹⁷The Lord gave Moses ¹⁸the following regulations for the people of Israel to observe in the land that he was going to give them. ¹⁹When any food produced there is eaten, some of it is to be set aside as a special contribution to the Lord. ²⁰When you bake bread, the first loaf of the first bread made from the new corn is to be presented as a special contribution to the Lord. This is to be presented in the same way as the special contribution you make from the corn you thresh. ²¹For all time to come, this special gift is to be given to the Lord from the bread you bake.

²²But suppose someone unintentionally fails to keep some of these regulations which the Lord has given Moses. ²³And suppose that in the future the community fails to do everything that the Lord commanded through Moses. ²⁴If the mistake was made because of the ignorance of the community, they are to offer a bull as a burnt offering, a smell that pleases the Lord, with the proper grain offering and wine offering. In addition, they are to offer a male goat as a sin offering. ²⁵The priest shall perform the ritual of purification for the community, and they will be forgiven, because the mistake was unintentional and they brought their sin offering as a food offering to the Lord. ²⁶The whole community of Israel and the foreigners living among them will be forgiven, because everyone was involved in the mistake.

^27*If an individual sins unintentionally, he is to offer a one-year-old female goat as a sin offering. ^28*At the altar the priest shall perform the ritual of purification to purify the person from his sin, and he will be forgiven. ²⁹The same regulation applies to all who unintentionally commit a sin, whether they are native Israelites or resident foreigners.

³⁰But any person who sins deliberately, whether he is a native or a foreigner, is guilty of treating the Lord with contempt, and he shall be put to death, ³¹because he has rejected what the Lord said and has deliberately broken one of his commands. He is responsible for his own death.

The Man Who Broke the Sabbath

³²Once, while the Israelites were still in the wilderness, a man was found gathering firewood on the Sabbath. ³³He was taken to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community, ³⁴and was put under guard, because it was not clear what should be done with him. ³⁵Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must be put to death; the whole community is to stone…