¹² But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”^(A)

²⁴ “Let Aaron be gathered to his people. For he shall not enter the land that I have given to the Israelites, because you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah.^(A)

²⁰ Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked;^{(A) 21} nevertheless, as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,^{(B) 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.^{(C) 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](D)

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.^{(E) 28} Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘I will do to you the very things I heard you say:^{(F) 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,^{(G) 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.^{(H) 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.^{(I) 32} But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.^{(J) 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.^{(K) 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.’^(L)

²¹ for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened.^(A)

²⁹ See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes.^(A)