Numbers 14:11-35

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?^{(A) 12} I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”^(B)

Moses Intercedes for the People

¹³ But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them,^{(C) 14} and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people, for you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.^{(D) 15} Now if you kill this people as one, then the nations who have heard about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^{(E) 17} And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying,

¹⁹ “Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”^(G)

²⁰ Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked;^{(H) 21} nevertheless, as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,^{(I) 22} none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice ²³ shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it. ²⁴ But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.^{(J) 25} Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”^[a](K)

An Attempted Invasion Is Repulsed

²⁶ And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ²⁷ “How long shall this wicked congregation complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they complain against me.^{(L) 28} Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘I will do to you the very things I heard you say:^{(M) 29} your dead bodies shall fall in this very wilderness, and of all your number included in the census from twenty years old and up who have complained against me,^{(N) 30} not one of you shall come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.^{(O) 31} But your little ones, who you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have despised.^{(P) 32} But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.^{(Q) 33} And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.^{(R) 34} According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’^{(S) 35} I the Lord have spoken; surely I will do thus to all this wicked congregation gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”^(T)