Num 14
1
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that
night.
2
And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and 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!
3
And wherefore does YHWH bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and
our little ones will be a prey: were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
4
And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
5
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation
of the children of Israel.
6
And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of them that spied
out the land, rent their clothes:
7
and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land,
which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land.
8
If YHWH delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a
land which flows with milk and honey.
9
Only rebel not against YHWH, neither fear you the people of the land; for they are
bread for us: their defence is removed from over them, and YHWH is with us: fear them
not.
10
But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of YHWH appeared
in the tent of meeting to all the children of Israel.
11
And YHWH said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they
not believe in me, for all the signs which I have wrought among them?
12
I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of you a
nation greater and mightier than they.
13
And Moses said to YHWH, Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people
in your might from among them;
14
and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you YHWH
art in the midst of this people; for you YHWH art 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.
15
Now if you shall kill this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the
fame of you will speak, saying,
16
Because YHWH was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them,
therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.
17
And now, I pray you, let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken,
saying,
18
YHWH is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression;
and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.
19
Pardon, I pray you, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your
lovingkindness, and according as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until
now.
20
And YHWH said, I have pardoned according to your word:
21
but in very deed, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of
YHWH;
22
because all those men that have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt
and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened
to my voice;
23
surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any
of them that despised me see it:
24
but my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me
fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess
it.
25
Now the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley: to-morrow turn you, and get
you into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.
26
And YHWH spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
27
How long [shall I bear] with this evil congregation, that murmur against me? I have
heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.
28
Say to them, As I live, says YHWH, surely as you have spoken in mine ears, so will
I do to you:
29
your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you,
according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, that have murmured
against me,
30
surely you shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore that I would make
you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
31
But your little ones, that you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they
shall know the land which you have rejected.
32
But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
33
And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear
your whoredoms, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness.
34
After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for
every day a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you shall
know my alienation.
35
I, YHWH, have spoken, surely this will I do to all this evil congregation, that are
gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there
they shall die.
36
And the men, whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned, and made all the congregation
to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report against the land,
37
even those men that did bring up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before
YHWH.
38
But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, remained alive of those
men that went to spy out the land.
39
And Moses told these words to all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.
40
And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up to the top of the mountain,
saying, Behold, we are here, and will go up to the place which YHWH has promised:
for we have sinned.
41
And Moses said, Wherefore now do you transgress the commandment of YHWH, seeing it
shall not prosper?
42
Go not up, for YHWH is not among you; that you be not smitten down before your enemies.
43
For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and you shall fall by the
sword: because you are turned back from following YHWH, therefore YHWH will not be
with you.
44
But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain: nevertheless the ark of the
covenant of YHWH, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.
45
Then the Amalekite came down, and the Canaanite who dwelt in that mountain, and smote
them and beat them down, even to Hormah.