Numbers 14:20–37

The Lord Pardons and Rebukes

20 So the Lord said, “aI have pardoned them according to your word;

21 but indeed, aas I live, 1ball the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

22 “Surely aall the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet bhave put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice,

23 ashall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it.

24 “But My servant Caleb, abecause he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, 1bI will bring into the land 2which he entered, and his 3descendants shall take possession of it.

25 “aNow the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; turn tomorrow and set out to the wilderness by the way of the 1Red Sea.”

26 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,

27 “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are agrumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are 1making against Me.

28 “Say to them, ‘aAs I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as byou have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you;

29 ayour corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all byour 1numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.

30 ‘Surely you shall not come into the land in which I 1swore to settle you, aexcept Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

31 ‘aYour children, however, whom you said would become a prey—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected.

32 ‘aBut as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.

33 ‘Your sons shall be shepherds for aforty years in the wilderness, and they will 1suffer for your 2unfaithfulness, until your corpses 3lie in the wilderness.

34 ‘According to the anumber of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your 1guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know My opposition.

35 ‘aI, the Lord, have spoken, surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they will die.’ ”

36 aAs for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land,

37 even athose men who brought out the very bad report of the land died by a bplague before the Lord.