Numbers 14:26-45

26Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron:

27“How long must I endure this evil community that keeps complaining about me? I have heard the Israelites’ complaints that they make against me.

28Tell them: As I live — this is the Lord’s declaration — I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.

29Your corpses will fall in this wilderness — all of you who were registered in the census, the entire number of you twenty years old or more  — because you have complained about me.

30I swear that none of you will enter the land I promised to settle you in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

31I will bring your children whom you said would become plunder into the land you rejected, and they will enjoy it.

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

33Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and bear the penalty for your acts of unfaithfulness until all your corpses lie scattered in the wilderness.

34You will bear the consequences of your iniquities forty years based on the number of the forty days that you scouted the land, a year for each day. You will know my displeasure.

35I, the Lord, have spoken. I swear that I will do this to the entire evil community that has conspired against me. They will come to an end in the wilderness, and there they will die.”

36So the men Moses sent to scout out the land, and who returned and incited the entire community to complain about him by spreading a negative report about the land —

37those men who spread the negative report about the land were struck down by the Lord.

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

39When Moses reported these words to all the Israelites, the people were overcome with grief.

40They got up early the next morning and went up the ridge of the hill country, saying, “Let’s go to the place the Lord promised, for we were wrong.”

41But Moses responded, “Why are you going against the Lord’s command? It won’t succeed.

42Don’t go, because the Lord is not among you and you will be defeated by your enemies.

43The Amalekites and Canaanites are right in front of you, and you will fall by the sword. The Lord won’t be with you, since you have turned from following him.”

44But they dared to go up the ridge of the hill country, even though the ark of the Lord’s covenant and Moses did not leave the camp.

45Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that part of the hill country came down, attacked them, and routed them as far as Hormah.