Numbers 14:12-37

12I will smite them with 12pestilence and dispossess them, and I 3will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

134But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought up this people from their midst, 14and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, O Lord, are in the midst of this people, for 5You, O Lord, are seen eye to eye, while Your cloud stands over them; and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15Now if You slay this people as one man, 6then the nations who have heard of Your fame will 7say, 16‘Because the Lord 8could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ 17But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have 9declared, 18‘10The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but 11He will by no means clear the guilty, 12visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children 13to the third and the fourth generations.’ 1914Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

20So the Lord said, “15I have pardoned them according to your word; 21but indeed, 16as I live, 1718all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. 22Surely 19all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet 20have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, 2321shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it. 24But My servant Caleb, 22because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, 2324I will bring into the land 25which he entered, and his 26descendants shall take possession of it. 2527Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; turn tomorrow and set out to the wilderness by the way of the 28Red Sea.”

26The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 27“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are 29grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are 30making against Me. 28Say to them, ‘31As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as 32you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you; 2933your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all 34your 35numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. 30Surely you shall not come into the land in which I 36swore to settle you, 37except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 3138Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey--I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. 3239But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. 33Your sons shall be shepherds for 40forty years in the wilderness, and they will 41suffer for your 42unfaithfulness, until your corpses 43lie in the wilderness. 34According to the 44number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your 45guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know My opposition. 3546I, the Lord, have spoken, surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they will die.’”

3647As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land, 37even 48those men who brought out the very bad report of the land died by a 49plague before the Lord.