²⁷ You murmured in your tents, and said, “Because Yahweh hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸ Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our heart melt, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to the sky. Moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there!’”

²⁹ Then I said to you, “Don’t be terrified. Don’t be afraid of them. ³⁰ Yahweh your God, who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, ³¹ and in the wilderness where you have seen how that Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.”

³² Yet in this thing you didn’t believe Yahweh your God, ³³ who went before you on the way, to seek out a place for you to pitch your tents in: in fire by night, to show you by what way you should go, and in the cloud by day. ³⁴ Yahweh heard the voice of your words and was angry, and swore, saying, ³⁵ “Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers, ³⁶ except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it. I will give the land that he has trodden on to him and to his children, because he has wholly followed Yahweh.”

³⁷ Also Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, saying, “You also shall not go in there.

² The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness;

² All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!

²⁰ Yahweh 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 Yahweh’s glory— ²² because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; ²³ surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it. ²⁴ But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went. His offspring shall possess it. ²⁵ Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” ²⁶ Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ²⁷ “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, which they complain against me. ²⁸ Tell them, ‘As I live, says Yahweh, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. ²⁹ Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, ³⁰ surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹ But I will bring in your little ones that you said should be captured or killed, and they shall know the land which you have rejected. ³² But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³ Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are 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, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’ ³⁵ I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”

¹⁷ With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹ We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

4 Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest. ² For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard.