¹³ Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.^{(A) 14} And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard^(B) that you, Lord, are with these people^(C) and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face,^(D) that your cloud stays over them,^(E) and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.^{(F) 15} If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath,^(G) so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^(H)

¹⁷ “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ¹⁸ ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.^(I) Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’^{(J) 19} In accordance with your great love, forgive^(K) the sin of these people,^(L) just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”^(M)

²⁰ The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them,^(N) as you asked. ²¹ Nevertheless, as surely as I live^(O) and as surely as the glory of the Lord^(P) fills the whole earth,^{(Q) 22} not one of those who saw my glory and the signs^(R) I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times^(S)— ²³ not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath^(T) to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt^(U) will ever see it.^{(V) 24} But because my servant Caleb^(W) has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly,^(X) I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.^{(Y) 25} Since the Amalekites^(Z) and the Canaanites^(AA) are living in the valleys, turn^(AB) back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.^[a](AC)”