Numbers 14:26-45

26The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,

27“How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who murmur [in discontent] against Me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they are making against Me.

28Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just what you have spoken in My hearing I will most certainly do to you;

29your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, even all who were numbered of you, your entire number from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against Me.

30Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, not one of you shall enter the land in which I swore [an oath] to settle you.

31But your children whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will know the land which you have despised and rejected.

32But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness.

33Your sons shall be wanderers and shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness (spiritual infidelity), until your corpses are consumed in the wilderness.

34According to the number of days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], forty days, for each day, you shall bear and suffer a year for your sins and guilt, for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement because of your sin].

35I, the Lord, have spoken. I will most certainly do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed [by war, disease, and plagues], and here they shall die.’ ”

36As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation murmur and complain against him by bringing back a bad report concerning the land,

37even those [ten] men who brought back the very bad report of the land died by a plague before the Lord.

38But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive out of those men who went to spy out the land.

39Moses spoke the Lord’s words to all the Israelites, and the people mourned greatly.

40They got up early in the morning and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, “Look, here we are; we have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised.”

41But Moses said, “Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the Lord, when it will not succeed?

42Do not go up, or you will be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is not among you.

43For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, because you have turned away from following the Lord; therefore the Lord will not be with you.”

44But [in their arrogance] they dared to go up to the ridge of the hill country; however, neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses left the camp.

45Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and struck the Israelites and scattered them as far as Hormah.