⁴ So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain and go back to Egypt.”

³⁹ Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,

¹⁶ “But they, our ancestors, acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks and did not obey your commandments;^{(A) 17} they refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.^(B)

³² Remember Lot’s wife.

¹⁶ Even so, he must not acquire many horses for himself or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You must never return that way again.’^(A)

¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return.

⁶⁸ The Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, by a route that I promised you would never see again, and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

²¹ For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was handed on to them.^{(A) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

and,

³⁹ But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost but among those who have faith and so preserve our souls.^(B)