²⁷ You were peevish and discontented in your tents, and said, Because the Lord hated us, He brought us forth out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.

²⁸ To what are we going up? Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, The people are bigger and taller than we are; the cities are great and fortified to the heavens. And moreover we have seen the [giantlike] sons of the Anakim there.

²⁹ Then I said to you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them.

³⁰ The Lord your God Who goes before you, He will fight for you just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

³¹ And in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God bore you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.

³² Yet in spite of this word you did not believe (trust, rely on, and remain steadfast to) the Lord your God,

³³ Who went in the way before you to search out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night, to show you by what way you should go, and in the cloud by day.

³⁴ And the Lord heard your words, and was angered and He swore,

³⁵ Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that good land which I swore to give to your fathers,

³⁶ Except [Joshua, of course, and] Caleb son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land upon which he has walked, because he has wholly followed the Lord.

³⁷ The Lord was angry with me also for your sakes, and said, You also shall not enter Canaan.

²⁴ Then they spurned and despised the pleasant and desirable land [Canaan]; they believed not His word [neither trusting in, relying on, nor holding to it];

²⁵ But they murmured in their tents and hearkened not to the voice of the Lord.

²⁶ Therefore He lifted up His hand [as if taking an oath] against them, that He would cause them to fall in the wilderness,

² And the whole congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness,

² All the Israelites grumbled and deplored their situation, accusing Moses and Aaron, to whom the whole congregation said, Would that we had died in Egypt! Or that we had died in this wilderness!

²⁰ And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word.

²¹ But truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,^(A)

²² Because all those men who have seen My glory and My [miraculous] signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tested and proved Me these ten times and have not heeded My voice,

²³ Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to give to their fathers; nor shall any who provoked (spurned, despised) Me see it.^(B)

²⁴ 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.

²⁵ Now because the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.

²⁶ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁷ How long will this evil congregation murmur against Me? I have heard the complaints the Israelites murmur against Me.

²⁸ Tell them, As I live, says the Lord, what you have said in My hearing I will do to you:

²⁹ Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness—of all who were numbered of you, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against Me,^(C)

³⁰ Surely none shall come into the land in which I swore to make you dwell, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³¹ But your little ones whom you said would be a prey, them will I bring in and they shall know the land which you have despised and rejected.

³² But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

³³ And your children shall be wanderers and shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and shall suffer for your whoredoms (your infidelity to your espoused God), until your corpses are consumed in the wilderness.

³⁴ After the number of the days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], even forty days, for each day a year shall you bear and suffer for your iniquities, even for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement].

³⁵ I the Lord have spoken; surely this will I do to all this evil congregation who is gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed [by war, disease, plagues], and here they shall die.^(D)

¹⁷ And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose ^[a]dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert?

¹⁸ And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]?

¹⁹ So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out].^(A)

4 Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered [today], let us be afraid [^[a]to distrust it], lest any of you should ^[b]think he has come too late and has come short of [reaching] it.

² For indeed we have had the glad tidings [Gospel of God] proclaimed to us just as truly as they [the Israelites of old did when the good news of deliverance from bondage came to them]; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith (with ^[c]the leaning of the entire personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness) by those who heard it; ^[d]neither were they united in faith with the ones [Joshua and Caleb] who heard (did believe).