Numbers 14:10–39

¹⁰And all the community said to stone them with stones, but the glory of Yahweh appeared in the tent of assembly among the Israelites.ⁱ

¹¹And Yahweh said to Moses, “How long until this people will despise me, and how long until they will not believe in me, and in all the signs that I have done in their^j midst? ¹²I will strike them^k with disease, and I will dispossess them;^l I will make you into a greater and stronger nation than them.”^m

¹³And Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear that you brought up this people from theirⁿ midst in your power, ¹⁴and they will tell it^o to the inhabitants of this land. They heard that you, Yahweh, are in the midst of this people, that you are seen eye to eye, and your cloud is standing over them, and in a column of cloud you go before them by day and in a column of fire at night. ¹⁵But if you destroy this people all at once,^p the nations that will have heard your message will say, ¹⁶‘Yahweh was unable to bring this people in the land that he swore by an oath, and he slaughtered them in the desert.’ ¹⁷But now, please, let the power of my Lord be great, just as you spoke,

¹⁸‘Yahweh is slow to anger^q

and great of loyal love,

forgiving^r sin and rebellion;

but surely he leaves nothing unpunished,

visiting the sin of the fathers on the sons

to the third and fourth generations.’

¹⁹Please forgive the sin of this people according to the greatness of your loyal love, just as you forgave^s this people, from Egypt until now.”

²⁰Yahweh said, “I have forgiven them according to your word; ²¹but as I am alive, the glory of Yahweh will fill all the earth. ²²But because all the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the desert yet tested me these ten times and did not listen to my voice, ²³they will not see the land that I swore by oath to their ancestors,^t and all those who despised me will not see it. ²⁴But my servant Caleb, because another spirit was with him, he remained true after me, and I will bring him into the land that he entered,^u and his offspring will take possession of it. ²⁵And the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; tomorrow turn and set out for the desert by way of the Red Sea.”^v

²⁶And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ²⁷“How long will I bear this evil community who are grumbling against me? I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites^w which they are making^x against me. ²⁸Say to them, ‘Surely as I live,’ declares^y Yahweh, ‘just as you spoke in my hearing,^z so I will do to you; ²⁹in this desert your corpses will fall, and all your counted ones, according to all your number, from twenty years old^a and above who grumbled against me. ³⁰You yourselves will not come into the land that I swore by oath^b to make you to dwell in it, but Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. ³¹But your little children, whom you said would be plunder, I will bring them, and they will know the land that you rejected. ³²But for you, all your corpses will fall in this desert. ³³And your children will be shepherds in the desert forty years,^c and you will bear your unfaithfulness until all your corpses have fallen^d in the desert. ³⁴According to the number of the days^e that you explored the land, forty days,^f a day for each year,^g you will bear your sins forty years,^h and you will know my opposition.’ ³⁵I, Yahweh, have spoken; I will surely do this to all this evil community who has banded together against me. In this desert they will come to an end, and there they will die.”

³⁶As for the men whom Moses sent to explore the land, who returned and made the community grumble against him by spreading a report over the land, ³⁷the men who spread the evil report of the land died by the plague before Yahweh.^{i 38}But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh lived from among the men who went to explore the land.

³⁹And Moses spoke words to all the Israelites,^j and the people mourned greatly.