Numbers 14:1-25

All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness! Why does the LORD bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into Egypt?” They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.” Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes. They spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us: a land which flows with milk and honey. Only don’t rebel against the LORD, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and the LORD is with us. Don’t fear them.” But all the congregation threatened to stone them with stones. The LORD’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the children of Israel. The LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them? I will strike them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people in your might from among them. They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you LORD are among this people; for you LORD are seen face to face, and 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. Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’ Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” The LORD said, “I have pardoned according to your word; but in very deed—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the LORD’s glory— because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went. His offspring shall possess it. Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Sea of Suf.”