Numbers 14:11–38

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt?^c How long will they refuse to believe in me,^d in spite of all the signs^e I have performed among them? ¹²I will strike them down with a plague^f and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation^g greater and stronger than they.”^h

¹³Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.^{i 14}And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard^j that you, Lord, are with these people^k and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face,^l that your cloud stays over them,^m and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.^{n 15}If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath,^o so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^p

¹⁷“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ¹⁸‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.^q Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’^{r 19}In accordance with your great love, forgive^s the sin of these people,^t just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”^u

²⁰The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them,^v as you asked. ²¹Nevertheless, as surely as I live^w and as surely as the glory of the Lord^x fills the whole earth,^{y 22}not one of those who saw my glory and the signs^z I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times^a—²³not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath^b to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt^c will ever see it.^{d 24}But because my servant Caleb^e has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly,^f I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.^{g 25}Since the Amalekites^h and the Canaanitesⁱ are living in the valleys, turn^j back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.^ak”

²⁶The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: ²⁷“How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.^{l 28}So tell them, ‘As surely as I live,^m declares the Lord, I will do to youⁿ the very thing I heard you say: ²⁹In this wilderness your bodies will fall^o—every one of you twenty years old or more^p who was counted in the census^q and who has grumbled against me. ³⁰Not one of you will enter the land^r I swore with uplifted hand^s to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh^t and Joshua son of Nun.^{u 31}As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.^{v 32}But as for you, your bodies will fall^w in this wilderness. ³³Your children will be shepherds here for forty years,^x suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness. ³⁴For forty years^y—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land^z—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ ³⁵I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will surely do these things^a to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this wilderness; here they will die.^b”

³⁶So the men Moses had sent^c to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble^d against him by spreading a bad report^e about it—³⁷these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report^f about the land were struck down and died of a plague^g before the Lord. ³⁸Of the men who went to explore the land,^h only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.ⁱ