1Then the whole congregation raised their voices, and the people wept throughout that night.2They grumbled against Moses and against Aaron; all the sons of Israel said to them, If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness.3Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our women and our children will become plunder. Would it not be good for us to return to Egypt?4They said to one another, Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the entire assembly of the congregation of the Israelites.6Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, from those who spied out the land, tore their garments.7They said to the whole congregation of the Israelites, The land that we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land.8If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.9Only do not rebel against the LORD, and you, do not fear the people of the land, for they are our food; their shadow has turned aside from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.10But the whole congregation said to stone them with stones, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.11The LORD said to Moses, Until when will this people spurn me, and until when will they not be faithful in me despite all the signs that I have done among them?12I will strike them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.13Moses said to the LORD, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by your power you brought this people up from among them.14They will tell the inhabitants of this land, who have heard that you, the LORD, are in the midst of this people, that you, the LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.15If you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your report will say.16Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he slaughtered them in the wilderness.17Now therefore, let the power of the LORD be great, just as you have promised when you said,18The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in kindness, lifting iniquity and transgression, and clearing he will by no means clear, reckoning the iniquity of fathers upon sons upon the third and upon the fourth.19Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have borne with this people from Egypt until now.20The LORD said, I have pardoned them according to your word.21Nevertheless, as I live, the glory of the LORD will fill all the earth.22For all the people who have seen my glory and my signs that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tested me these ten times and have not listened to my voice.23If they see the land that I swore to their fathers, none of my despisers shall see it.24But my servant Caleb, because a different spirit was with him and he followed after me fully, I will bring him into the land that he entered, and his seed shall possess it.25Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; tomorrow turn and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.26The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,27Until when shall this bad congregation that grumbles against me continue? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel that they grumble against me.28Say to them, As I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as you have spoken in my hearing.29Your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, and all of you who were numbered, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me.30If you come into the land that I lifted my hand to settle you in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.31Your children, whom you said would become plunder, I will bring them, and they shall know the land that you rejected in it.32Your corpses shall fall in this wilderness.33Your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall bear your fornication until your corpses are finished in the wilderness.34According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquities forty years and know my displeasure.35I the LORD have spoken; surely this I will do to all this evil congregation that has gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to an end, and there they shall die.36The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land returned and grumbled against him, and they caused the whole congregation to grumble by bringing a report upon the land.37The men who brought the bad report of the land died by the plague before the LORD.38Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh alone remained alive of those men who had gone to spy out the land.39Moses spoke these words to all the Israelites, and the people mourned greatly.40They rose early in the morning and went up toward the top of the mountain, saying, Here we are; we will go up to the place that the LORD has promised, for we have sinned.41But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing the command of the LORD? It will not succeed.42Do not go up, for the LORD is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies.43For the Amalekite and the Canaanite are there before you, and you will fall by the sword, because you have returned from after the LORD, the LORD will not be with you.44Yet they presumed to go up to the head of the mountain, but the ark of the covenant of the LORD and Moses did not remove from the midst of the camp.45The Amalekite and the Canaanite who dwell in that mountain came down and struck them and crushed them as far as Hormah.