⁹ Moses told this to the Israelites, but they would not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.

²¹ They said to them, “The Lord look upon you and judge! You have brought us into bad odor with Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”^(A)

⁴ From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,^[a] to go around the land of Edom, but the people became discouraged on the way.^(A)

¹² Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”