Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept
that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and
Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died
in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword?
Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be
better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another,
“Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly
of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua the son of
Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had
spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the
congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed
through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD
delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us,
a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against
the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are
bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD
is with us; do not fear them.” Then all the congregation said to
stone them with stones. But the glory of the LORD appeared at the
tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.
And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise
me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the
signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the
pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation
greater and mightier than they.”
But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it,
for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and
they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that
you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people. For you, O LORD, are
seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go
before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by
night. Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who
have heard your fame will say, ‘It is because the LORD was not able
to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them
that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ And now, please let the
power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The LORD
is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving
iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the
guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to
the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of
this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love,
just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But
truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the
glory of the LORD, none of the men who have seen my glory and my
signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put
me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall
see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of
those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because
he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring
into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess
it. Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the
valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to
the Red Sea.”
And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long shall
this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the
grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.
Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in
my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this
wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from
twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one
shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell,
except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But
your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring
in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for
you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your
children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall
suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies
lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in
which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you
shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my
displeasure.’ I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to
all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me:
in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they
shall die.”
And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and
made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad
report about the land—the men who brought up a bad report of the
land—died by plague before the LORD. Of those men who went to spy
out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of
Jephunneh remained alive.
When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the
people mourned greatly. And they rose early in the morning and went
up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We
will go up to the place that the LORD has promised, for we have
sinned.” But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command
of the LORD, when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the LORD
is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. For
there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you
shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from
following the LORD, the LORD will not be with you.” But they
presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although
neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed out
of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in
that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them,
even to Hormah.
