Numbers 14–15

Israel’s Refusal to Enter Canaan

14Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. ²All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, ^eand the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! ³Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and little children will become plunder. ^fWouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” ^g4So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”

⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces to the ground in front of the whole assembly of the Israelite community. ⁶Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who scouted out the land, tore their clothes ⁷and said to the entire Israelite community: “The land we passed through and explored is an extremely good land. ^h8If the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, ⁱand give it to us. ⁹Only don’t rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them. ^jTheir protection ^khas been removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Don’t be afraid of them!”

¹⁰While the whole community threatened to stone them, ^lthe glory of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the tent of meeting.

God’s Judgment of Israel’s Rebellion

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people despise Me? How long will they not trust in Me despite all the signs I have performed among them? ^m12I will strike them with a plague and destroy them. Then I will make you into a greater and mightier nation than they are.” ⁿ

¹³But Moses replied to the Lord, “The Egyptians will hear about it, for by Your strength You brought up this people from them. ¹⁴They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. ^oThey have heard that You, Lord, are among these people, how You, Lord, are seen face to face, how Your cloud stands over them, and how You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. ^p15If You kill this people with a single blow, ^qrthe nations that have heard of Your fame ^swill declare, ¹⁶‘Since the Lord wasn’t able to bring this people into the land He swore to give them, ^tHe has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ ^u

¹⁷“So now, may my Lord’s power be magnified just as You have spoken: ¹⁸The Lord is slow to anger and rich in faithful love, ^vforgiving wrongdoing and rebellion. ^wBut He will not leave the guilty unpunished, ^xbringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children to the third and fourth generation. ^y19Please pardon the wrongdoing of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your faithful love, ^zjust as You have forgiven them from Egypt until now.”

²⁰The Lord responded, “I have pardoned them as you requested. ²¹Yet as surely as I live and as the whole earth is filled with the Lord’s glory, ^a22none of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tested Me these 10 times and did not obey Me, ²³will ever see the land I swore to give their fathers. ^bNone of those who have despised Me ^cwill see it. ²⁴But since My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me completely, I will bring him into the land where he has gone, and his descendants will inherit it. ^d25Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the lowlands, ^eturn back tomorrow and head for the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.” ^f

²⁶Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: ²⁷“How long must I endure this evil community that keeps complaining about Me? I have heard the Israelites’ complaints that they make against Me. ^g28Tell them: As surely as I live,” this is the Lord’s declaration, “I will do to you exactly as I heard you say. ²⁹Your corpses will fall in this wilderness—all of you who were registered in the census, the entire number of you 20 years old or more ^h—because you have complained about Me. ³⁰I swear that none of you will enter the land I promised ⁱto settle you in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. ³¹I will bring your children whom you said would become plunder ^jinto the land you rejected, and they will enjoy it. ^k32But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. ³³Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for 40 years and bear the penalty for your acts of unfaithfulness until all your corpses lie scattered in the wilderness. ³⁴You will bear the consequences of your sins 40 years based on the number of the 40 days that you scouted the land, a year for each day. ^lmYou will know My displeasure. ⁿ³⁵I, Yahweh, have spoken. I swear that I will do this to the entire evil community that has conspired against Me. ^oThey will come to an end in the wilderness, and there they will die.” ^p

³⁶So the men Moses sent to scout out the land, and who returned and incited the entire community to complain about him by spreading a negative report about the land— ³⁷those men who spread the negative report about the land were struck down by the Lord. ³⁸Only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who went to scout out the land.

Israel Routed

³⁹When Moses reported these words to all the Israelites, the people were overcome with grief. ⁴⁰They got up early the next morning and went up the ridge of the hill country, saying, “Let’s go to the place the Lord promised, for we were wrong.” ^q

⁴¹But Moses responded, “Why are you going against the Lord’s command? It won’t succeed. ⁴²Don’t go, because the Lord is not among you and you will be defeated by your enemies. ⁴³The Amalekites and Canaanites are right in front of you, and you will fall by the sword. The Lord won’t be with you, since you have turned from following Him.”

⁴⁴But they dared to go up the ridge of the hill country, even though the ark of the Lord’s covenant and Moses did not leave the camp. ⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that part of the hill country came down, attacked them, and routed them as far as Hormah. ^r

Laws about Offerings

15The Lord instructed Moses: ²“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land I am giving you to settle in, ^s3and you make a fire offering ^tto the Lord from the herd or flock—either a burnt offering or a sacrifice, to fulfill a vow, ^uor as a freewill offering, or at your appointed festivals—to produce a pleasing aroma for the Lord, ^v4the one presenting his offering to the Lord must also present a grain offering of two quarts ^wof fine flour mixed with a quart ^xof oil. ⁵Prepare a quart ^yof wine as a drink offering ^zwith the burnt offering or sacrifice of each lamb.

⁶“If you prepare a grain offering with a ram, it must be four quarts ^aof fine flour mixed with a third of a gallon ^bof oil. ^c7Also present a third of a gallon ^dof wine for a drink offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

⁸“If you prepare a young bull as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice, to fulfill a vow, or as a fellowship offering to the Lord, ⁹a grain offering of six quarts ^eof fine flour mixed with two quarts ^fof oil must be presented with the bull. ^g10Also present two quarts ^hof wine as a drink offering. It is a fire offering of pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹¹This is to be done for each ox, ram, lamb, or goat. ¹²This is how you must prepare each of them, no matter how many.

¹³“Every Israelite is to prepare these things in this way when he presents a fire offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹⁴When a foreigner resides with you or someone else is among you and wants to prepare a fire offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, he is to do exactly as you do throughout your generations. ¹⁵The assembly is to have the same statute for ⁱboth you and the foreign resident as a permanent statute throughout your generations. ^jYou and the foreigner will be alike before the Lord. ¹⁶The same law and the same ordinance will apply to both you and the foreigner who resides with you.” ^k

¹⁷The Lord instructed Moses: ¹⁸“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: After you enter the land where I am bringing you, ¹⁹you are to offer a contribution to the Lord when you eat from the food of the land. ²⁰You are to offer a loaf from your first batch of dough ^las a contribution; offer it just like a contribution from the threshing floor. ^m21Throughout your generations, you are to give the Lord a contribution from the first batch of your dough.

²²“When you sin unintentionally and do not obey all these commands that the Lord spoke to Moses ⁿ— ²³all that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, from the day the Lord issued the commands and onward throughout your generations— ²⁴and if it was done unintentionally without the community’s awareness, the entire community is to prepare one young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and drink offering according to the regulation, and one male goat as a sin offering. ²⁵The priest must then make atonement for the entire Israelite community so that they may be forgiven, ^ofor the sin was unintentional. They are to bring their offering, one made by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their unintentional sin. ²⁶The entire Israelite community and the foreigner who resides among them will be forgiven, since it happened to all the people unintentionally.

²⁷“If one person sins unintentionally, ^phe is to present a year-old female goat as a sin offering. ²⁸The priest must then make atonement before the Lord on behalf of the person who acts in error sinning unintentionally, and when he makes atonement for him, he will be forgiven. ²⁹You are to have the same law for the person who acts in error, whether he is an Israelite or a foreigner who lives among you.

³⁰“But the person who acts defiantly, ^qwhether native or foreign resident, blasphemes the Lord. ^rThat person is to be cut off from his people. ³¹He will certainly be cut off, because he…