Numbers 14:12-37

12I will strike them with 12plague 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 this people up from their midst, 14and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are in the midst of this people, because 5You, 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 put this people to death 6all at once, 7then the nations who have heard of Your fame will 8say, 16‘Since the Lord 9could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath, He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ 17So now, please, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared, saying, 18‘10The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in mercy, forgiving wrongdoing and violation of His Law; but 11He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, 12inflicting the 13punishment of the fathers on the children 14to the third and the fourth generations.’ 19Please 15forgive the guilt of this people in accordance with the greatness of Your mercy, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

20So the Lord said, “16I have forgiven them in accordance with your word; 21however, 17as I live, 1819all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. 22Certainly 20all the people who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet 21have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, 2322shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who were disrespectful to Me see it. 24But as for My servant Caleb, 23because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, 24I will bring him into the land which he 25entered, and his 26descendants shall take possession of it. 2527Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way of the 28Red Sea.”

26The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron again, saying, 27“How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who are 29grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are 30voicing against Me. 28Say to them, ‘31As I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘just as 32you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you; 2933your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all 34your 35numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. 30By no means will you come into the land where I 36swore to settle you, 37except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 3138Your children, however, whom you said would become plunder--I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. 3239But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. 33Also, your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for 40forty years, and they will 41suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your bodies perish in the wilderness. 34In accordance with the 42number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your 43guilt a year, that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition. 3544I, the Lord, have spoken, I certainly will do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. They shall be worn out in this wilderness, and there they shall die.’”

3645As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and led all the congregation to grumble against him by bringing a bad report about the land, 3746those men who brought the bad report of the land also died by a 47plague in the presence of the Lord.