⁶“Do you intend to stay here while your brothers go across and do all the fighting?” Moses asked the men of Gad and Reuben. ⁷“Why do you want to discourage the rest of the people of Israel from going across to the land the Lord has given them? ⁸Your ancestors did the same thing when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to explore the land. ⁹After they went up to the valley of Eshcol and explored the land, they discouraged the people of Israel from entering the land the Lord was giving them. ¹⁰Then the Lord was very angry with them, and he vowed, ¹¹‘Of all those I rescued from Egypt, no one who is twenty years old or older will ever see the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they have not obeyed me wholeheartedly. ¹²The only exceptions are Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they have wholeheartedly followed the Lord.’

¹³“The Lord was angry with Israel and made them wander in the wilderness for forty years until the entire generation that sinned in the Lord’s sight had died. ¹⁴But here you are, a brood of sinners, doing exactly the same thing! You are making the Lord even angrier with Israel. ¹⁵If you turn away from him like this and he abandons them again in the wilderness, you will be responsible for destroying this entire nation!”

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