Numbers 14:1-45 The whole congregation lifted up and gave forth their voice, and the people lamented through that night.

CLV⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ The whole congregation lifted up and gave forth their voice, and the people lamented through that night. ² All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them:O that we had died in the land of Egypt or in this wilderness! O that we had died! ³ Why is Yahweh bringing us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones shall be taken as plunder. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt? ⁴ And they said each to his brother:Let us appoint a head, and let us return to Egypt. ⁵ Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the whole assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel. ⁶ Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the explorers of the land, tore their garment. ⁷ and said to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, saying:The land through which we passed to explore it is a very, very good land. ⁸ If Yahweh delights in us then He will bring us into this land, and He will give it to us. It is a land which is gushing with milk and honey. ⁹ Only against Yahweh do not revolt, and you, do not fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protecting shadow has withdrawn from over them, and Yahweh is with us. Do not fear them. ¹⁰ Yet the whole congregation said to pelt them with stones. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared in a cloud on the tent of appointment to all the sons of Israel. ¹¹ Yahweh said to Moses:How long shall this people spurn Me? And how long shall they not believe in Me despite all the signs which I have done among them? ¹² I shall smite them with the plague and evict them, and I shall make you into a greater and more substantial nation than they. ¹³ Yet Moses said to Yahweh:The Egyptians have heard that You brought up this people by Your vigor, from among them;" ¹⁴ and they have spoken to the dwellers of this land; they have heard that You, Yahweh, are among this people, that You are being seen eye to eye, Yahweh, and Your cloud is standing over them, and in a column of cloud You are going before them by day and in a column of fire by night. ¹⁵ If You put this people to death as one man, then the nations who heard the report of You will say, saying. ¹⁶ Because Yahweh was unable to bring this people to the land about which He had sworn to them, He slew them in the wilderness. ¹⁷ So now let, I pray, the vigor of Yahweh be great just as You have spoken, saying. ¹⁸ Yahweh, slow to anger and with much kindness and truth, bearing with depravity and transgression and sin, yet He is not immediately making innocent in order to make innocent, but is visiting the depravity of the fathers on the sons, on the third and on the fourth generation. ¹⁹ Pardon, I pray, the depravity of this people according to the greatness of Your kindness just as You bore with this people from Egypt and hitherto. ²⁰ Yahweh said:I have pardoned them according to your word. ²¹ Howbeit, as I am the living One, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Yahweh, ²² all the men who were seeing My glory and My signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, who probed Me these ten times and they did not hearken to My voice, ²³ they assuredly shall not see the land about which I had sworn to their fathers! All who are spurning Me shall not see it. ²⁴ Yet My servant Caleb, inasmuch as there is another spirit with him and he is following fully after Me, I will bring him to the land where he will enter, and his seed shall prepare it for tenancy. ²⁵ Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite are dwelling in the vale, turn around tomorrow and journey; get yourself on to the wilderness, the Sea of Weeds road. ²⁶ Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying. ²⁷ How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, they who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel which they are grumbling against Me. ²⁸ Say to them:As I am the living One (this is the averring of Yahweh), just as you have spoken into My ears so shall I assuredly do to you. ²⁹ In this wilderness your corpses shall fall:all your mustered ones, all of your number, from twenty years old and upward, you who have murmured against Me, ³⁰ you yourselves shall assuredly not come into the land in which I lifted My hand to tabernacle you, none save Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. ³¹ As for your little ones of whom you have said:They shall be taken as plunder, I will also bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. ³² As for you, your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, ³³ and your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will bear your prostitutions until your corpses are spent in the wilderness. ³⁴ By the number of the days in which you explored the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, shall you bear your depravities:forty years; thus you will realize My repudiation. ³⁵ I, Yahweh, I have spoken. This assuredly shall I do to this whole evil congregation, those who are set against Me. In this wilderness shall they be spent, and there shall they die. ³⁶ The men whom Moses had sent to explore the land, who had returned and caused the whole congregation to grumble against him by bringing forth a disparaging muttering about the land, ³⁷ those men who were bringing forth evil mutterings of the land died by a stroke before Yahweh. ³⁸ As for Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, they remained alive of those men going to explore the land. ³⁹ Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned exceedingly. ⁴⁰ They rose early in the morning and went up to the summit of the hill-country, saying:Behold us, now we will go up to the place of which Yahweh spoke, for we have sinned. ⁴¹ Moses said:Why is this? You are trespassing the bidding of Yahweh, so this shall not prosper. ⁴² Do not go up since Yahweh is not among you so that you not be stricken before your enemies. ⁴³ For the Amalekite and the Canaanite are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following Yahweh, Yahweh shall not be with you. ⁴⁴ Yet they presumed to go up to the summit of the hill-country though the coffer of the covenant of Yahweh, and Moses, were not removed from within the camp. ⁴⁵ The Amalekite and the Canaanite, dwelling in that hill-country, descended, smote them and pounded them as far as Hormah.