Chapter 14
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And all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night.
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And all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, and they said to them, "The entire congregation—we died in the land of Egypt or in this wilderness—we died."
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And why is the LORD bringing us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be for plunder. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?
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And they said, one to his brother, "Let us appoint a head and let us return to Egypt."
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And Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel.
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And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh tore their garments because of the people of the land.
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They said to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, "The land through which we passed to spy it out is very, very good."
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If the LORD delights in us and brings us to the land and gives it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
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Only do not rebel against the LORD, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their shadow has turned aside from over them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.
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And all the congregation said to stone them with stones, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel.
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And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people provoke me? And how long will they not believe in me, in all the signs that I have done in their midst?"
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I will strike them with the plague and dispossess them, and I will make you into a great and mighty nation from him.
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And Moses said to the LORD, "Egypt will hear that you have brought up this people from its midst with your power."
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and they will say to the inhabitants of this land, "They have heard that you, the LORD, are in the midst of this people, you who are seen eye to eye, the LORD, and your cloud stands over them, and in a standing cloud you go before them by day and in a pillar of fire by night."
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You will put this people to death as one man, and the nations that have heard your fame will say:
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because of the LORD's inability to bring this people to the land which he swore to them, and because he slaughtered them in the wilderness.
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And now, may the strength of the Lord please be magnified, just as you have spoken:
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The LORD is slow to anger and great in steadfast love, bears iniquity and transgression and cleanses; he does not cleanse, visits iniquity of fathers on sons, on thirds and on fourths.
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Please forgive the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, and as you have borne this people from Egypt until here.
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And the LORD said, "I have forgiven according to your word."
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But truly, as I live, the glory of the LORD will fill all the earth.
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for all the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tested me these ten times and not obeyed my voice.
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They will not see the land which I swore to their fathers—all my despisers will not see it.
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But my servant Caleb, because a different spirit was with him and he fulfilled after me, I will bring him into the land which he came there, and his seed will inherit it.
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The Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley. Tomorrow turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Sea of Reeds.
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And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying:
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How long will this evil congregation be murmuring against me? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel which they are murmuring against me.
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Say to them, "As I live," says the LORD, "I will do to you just as you spoke in my ears."
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In this wilderness your carcasses will fall, and all whom you oversaw according to all your count from a son twenty years and upward, who lodged against me.
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If you come to the land which I lifted my hand to give you, to dwell in it—except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
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And your little ones, whom you said would be plunder, they will be, and I will bring them and they will know the land which you rejected.
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And your carcasses will fall in this wilderness.
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And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and they shall bear your whorings until the complete end of your carcasses in the wilderness.
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According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, you will bear your iniquities forty years, and you will know my rebellion.
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I, the LORD, have spoken: If not, I will do this to all this evil assembly, the ones gathered against me, in this wilderness—they will be finished, and there they will die.
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And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and grumbled against him—the whole congregation—to bring out a bad report against the land.
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And the men who brought an evil report about the land died by a plague before the LORD.
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And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh were among the men who had gone to spy out the land.
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And Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.
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And they rose early in the morning and went up to the head of the mountain, saying, "Here we are, and we will go up to the place that the LORD spoke of, for we have sinned."
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And Moses said, "Why is this—you crossing the mouth of the LORD? And it will not succeed."
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Do not go up, for the LORD is not in your midst, and you will not be struck down before your enemies.
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for the Amalekite and the Canaanite are there before you, and you will fall by the sword, because you turned back from following the LORD, and the LORD will not be with you.
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And they acted presumptuously and went up to the head of the mountain, but the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD and Moses did not depart from the midst of the camp.
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And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain went down and struck them and crushed them as far as the Hormah.