¹Then the whole congregation raised their voice and gave vent to it, and the people wept that night. ²And all the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and all the congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this desert. ³Why is the Lord bringing us to this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our children will be a spoil. Would it not be good for us to return to Egypt?” ⁴And one man would say to another, “Let us appoint a head and return to Egypt.” ⁵At this Moses and Aaron fell face down before the whole assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel. ⁶And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes, ⁷and they spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, and they said, “The land which we crossed to spy it out is a very, very good land. ⁸If the Lord takes delight in us, he will bring us to this land, and he will give it to us – a land which is flowing with milk and honey. ⁹But do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land, for they are our warfare, and their defence is departing from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.” ¹⁰Then all the congregation spoke for stoning them, when the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of contact to all the sons of Israel. ¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? ¹²I will strike them with a plague, and I will disinherit them, and I will make just you a people greater and more powerful than them.” ¹³Then Moses said to the Lord, “Then Egypt will hear that you brought this people up from its midst by your power, ¹⁴and they will tell of it to the inhabitants of this land, who have heard that you are the Lord in the midst of this people, and that you appeared, O Lord, eye to eye, and how your cloud would remain on them, and in the column of the cloud you would go before them by day, and in the column of fire by night. ¹⁵If you kill this people down to the last man, the Gentiles who have heard of your fame will speak and say, ¹⁶‘It is for lack of ability of the Lord to bring this people to the land which he promised by an oath to them that he slaughtered them in the desert.’ ¹⁷So now, please let your power be great, O Lord^*, as you have spoken and said, ¹⁸‘The Lord is longsuffering and great in mercy, bearing iniquity and transgression, but he certainly will not declare them innocent, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on sons, on the third generation, and on the fourth generation.’ ¹⁹Please forgive the iniquity of this people according to your great kindness, and as you have borne with this people from Egypt to here.” ²⁰Then the Lord said, “I have forgiven them in accordance with your request. ²¹But, as I live, the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. ²²Nevertheless, all the men who, seeing my glory and my signs which I performed in Egypt and in the desert, still tempted me these ten times and did not heed me ²³will certainly not see the land about which I swore to their fathers, and all those who despise me will not see it. ²⁴But as for my servant Caleb, because there was a different spirit with him, and he fully followed me, I will bring him into the land which he is going to, and his seed will inherit it. ²⁵Yet the Amalekite and the Canaanite are living in the valley. Tomorrow turn and move on to the desert in the direction of the Red Sea.” ²⁶And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron and said, ²⁷“How long shall I suffer this wicked congregation, who murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel with which they murmur against me. ²⁸Say to them, ‘As I live, says the Lord, I swear that as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will deal with you. ²⁹Your corpses will fall in this desert with all of those of you counted according to all your numbers, from twenty years old and above, because you murmured against me. ³⁰I swear that you will not go to the land which I swore to settle you in, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹Now as for your children, whom you said would be a spoil, I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you rejected. ³²But as for you, your corpses will fall in this desert. ³³And your sons will be shepherds in the desert for forty years, and they will bear your immoral practices until your corpses have been consumed in the desert, ³⁴according with the number of days you spied out the land – for forty days. At a day to a year you will bear your iniquities, for forty years, and you will know how you hindered me.’ ³⁵I, the Lord, have said, ‘I will certainly do this to all this wicked congregation which is gathered together against me. They will be consumed in this desert, and there they will die, ³⁶as will the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land who, when they returned, murmured against him with all the congregation by propounding a slander about the land.’ ” ³⁷And the men who propounded the evil slander about the land died in a plague before the Lord. ³⁸But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh survived of those men who went to spy out the land. ³⁹And Moses told these things to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. ⁴⁰And they rose early in the morning, and they were going up to the summit of the mountain when they said, “Here we are, and we have come up to the place which the Lord spoke of, for we have sinned.” ⁴¹Then Moses said, “Why ever are you transgressing the Lord's command? So this will not succeed. ⁴²Do not go up, for the Lord is not in your midst, so that you do not get struck down before your enemies. ⁴³For the Amalekite and the Canaanite are there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, because you have turned away from following the Lord, and the Lord will not be with you.” ⁴⁴But they were presumptuous in going up to the summit of the mountain when the ark of the covenant of the Lord and Moses had not moved from the midst of the camp. ⁴⁵And the Amalekite came down, as did the Canaanite who lived on that mountain, and they struck them and routed them as far as Hormah.