Numbers 14:7-24

7and said to the entire Israelite community, “The land we passed through and explored is an extremely good land.

8If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and give it to us.

9Only don’t rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them. Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Don’t be afraid of them!”

10While the whole community threatened to stone them, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the tent of meeting.

11The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people despise me? How long will they not trust in me despite all the signs I have performed among them?

12I will strike them with a plague and destroy them. Then I will make you into a greater and mightier nation than they are.”

13But Moses replied to the Lord, “The Egyptians will hear about it, for by your strength you brought up this people from them.

14They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among these people, how you, Lord, are seen face to face, how your cloud stands over them, and how you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

15If you kill this people with a single blow, the nations that have heard of your fame will declare,

16‘Since the Lord wasn’t able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them, he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’

17“So now, may my Lord’s power be magnified just as you have spoken:

18The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation.

19Please pardon the iniquity of this people, in keeping with the greatness of your faithful love, just as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now.”

20The Lord responded, “I have pardoned them as you requested.

21Yet as I live and as the whole earth is filled with the Lord’s glory,

22none of the men who have seen my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tested me these ten times and did not obey me,

23will ever see the land I swore to give their ancestors. None of those who have despised me will see it.

24But since my servant Caleb has a different spirit and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land where he has gone, and his descendants will inherit it.