1 The whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and the people wept all that night.
2 All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "We wish we had died in the land of Egypt, or in this wilderness—we wish we had died!
3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land to die by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as spoil. Wouldn't we be better off going back to Egypt?"
4 And they said to each other, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt."
5 Moses and Aaron fell face down before the whole assembled congregation of the children of Israel.
6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of those who had explored the land, tore their clothes
7 and said to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, "The land we passed through to explore is a very, very good land.
8 If the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
9 Only do not rebel against the LORD, and do not be afraid of the people of the land, for we will swallow them up like bread. Their shelter has been taken from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them."
10 But the whole congregation talked of stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the children of Israel.
11 The LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?
12 I will strike them with pestilence and disown them, and I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they are."
13 Moses said to the LORD, "But the Egyptians will hear of it! It was by your might that you brought this people up out of their midst,
14 and they will tell it to those who live in this land. They have heard that you, LORD, are among this people, that you, LORD, are seen eye to eye, that your cloud stands above them, and that you go ahead of them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
15 If you now kill this people all at once, the nations who have heard of your fame will say,
16 'The LORD could not bring this people into the land he swore to give them, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.'
17 Now then, let the power of my Lord be great, as you have declared:
18 'The LORD is slow to anger and rich in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he does not let the guilty go unpunished; he visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.'
19 Please forgive the iniquity of this people in keeping with the greatness of your steadfast love, as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now."
20 The LORD said, "I have forgiven them as you asked.
21 Yet as surely as I live, and as surely as the glory of the LORD will fill the whole earth,
22 not one of the men who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have put me to the test these ten times and not obeyed my voice,
23 will see the land I swore to their fathers. None of those who treated me with contempt will see it.
24 But my servant Caleb, because a different spirit is in him and he has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land he entered, and his descendants will possess it.
25 Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and head out into the wilderness by the road to the Red Sea."
26 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
27 "How long must I put up with this wicked congregation murmuring against me? I have heard the murmurings the children of Israel keep making against me.
28 Tell them, 'As I live, says the LORD, I will do to you exactly what I heard you say.
29 In this wilderness your corpses will fall—every one of you who was registered, your full number from twenty years old and above, who murmured against me.
30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with raised hand to settle you in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
31 But your little ones, who you said would be taken as spoil, I will bring in, and they will come to know the land you have rejected.
32 As for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.
33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, bearing the consequences of your unfaithfulness until the last of your corpses lies in the wilderness.
34 Matching the number of days you spent exploring the land, forty days—a year for each day—you will bear your iniquities forty years, and you will know my opposition.'
35 I, the LORD, have spoken. I will certainly do this to this whole wicked congregation that has banded together against me: in this wilderness they will meet their end, and here they will die."
36 As for the men Moses sent to explore the land, who came back and made the whole congregation murmur against him by spreading an evil report about the land—
37 those men who spread the evil report about the land died by a plague before the LORD.
38 Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.
39 When Moses reported these words to all the children of Israel, the people grieved bitterly.
40 Early the next morning they set off up toward the ridge of the hill country, saying, "Here we are; we will go up to the place the LORD promised, for we have sinned."
41 But Moses said, "Why are you going against the LORD's command? This will not succeed.
42 Do not go up, for the LORD is not among you, or you will be beaten by your enemies.
43 The Amalekites and the Canaanites are there facing you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the LORD, the LORD will not be with you."
44 Yet they defiantly went up toward the ridge of the hill country, though neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses left the camp.
45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, struck them, and crushed them all the way to Hormah.