Numbers
Chapter 14
1 The whole group raised their voices, cried, and the people cried all night.
2 All the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole group said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or if only we had died in this desert!”
3 Why did God bring us to this land to be killed by the sword and to have our wives and children taken away? Wouldn’t it have been better to go back to Egypt?
4 They said to each other, “Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces to the ground in front of all the Israelites gathered there.
6 Joshua, Nun’s son, and Caleb, Jephunneh’s son, who had explored the land, tore their clothes.
7 They told all the Israelites, “The land we explored is a very good land.”
8 If God is pleased with us, then he will take us into this land and give it to us; a land filled with milk and honey.
9 Do not go against God, and do not be afraid of the people in the land; they are like food for us. Their protection is gone, and God is with us. Do not fear them.
10 The whole group wanted to throw stones at them. Then God’s presence showed up at the meeting tent in front of all the Israelites.
11 God said to Moses, “How long will these people keep annoying me? And how long will it take before they trust me, despite all the miracles I’ve done for them?”
12 I will strike them with disease, disown them, and make you into a greater and stronger nation than they are.
13 And Moses said to God, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it, because you brought these people out with your power from among them.”
14 They will tell the people of this land that you, God, are with this group, you are seen directly, and your cloud is over them. You lead them with a cloud column in the day and a fire column at night.
15 If you kill all these people at once, then the nations who have heard about you will say,
16 God could not take these people into the land he promised them, so he killed them in the desert.
17 Now, I ask you, let God’s power be great, just as you have said.
18 God is patient and very merciful, forgiving wrongdoing and rebellion, but not excusing the guilty, making the children bear the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generation.
19 Please forgive the wrongdoings of these people because of your great mercy, just as you have forgiven them from the time they left Egypt until now.
20 God said, I have forgiven as you asked.
21 As sure as I am alive, the whole world will be filled with the glory of God.
22 Because all those men who saw my glory and the miracles I did in Egypt and the wilderness have tested me ten times and have not listened to my voice;
23 They will not see the land that I promised to their ancestors, nor will any who angered me see it.
24 But my servant Caleb, because he was different and followed me completely, I will lead him into the land he explored, and his descendants will own it.
25 The Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley. Tomorrow, go back and head into the desert towards the Red Sea.
26 God spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying.
27 How long must I put up with these wicked people who complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they keep making against me.
28 Tell them, ‘As surely as I am alive,’ says God, ‘I will do to you exactly what you said to me.’
29 Your dead bodies will lie in the desert; and everyone of you counted, from age twenty and older who complained against me, will not enter the land.
30 Certainly, you will not enter the land that I promised you would live in, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
31 I will bring in your little ones, whom you said would be victims, and they will get to know the land you did not value.
32 Your dead bodies will fall in this desert.
33 Your children will walk in the desert for forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness until your bodies are gone in the desert.
34 For the same number of days you explored the land, forty days, you will suffer for your wrongs, one year for each day, totaling forty years, and you will understand my broken promise.
35 I, God, have said I will definitely do it to all this wicked group that has come together against me: they will be destroyed in this desert and they will die there.
36 The men Moses sent to explore the land came back and made everyone complain about him by spreading false reports about the land.
37 The men who told the bad news about the land died from sickness in front of God.
38 But Joshua, Nun’s son, and Caleb, Jephunneh’s son, who had explored the land, were still alive.
39 Moses told these words to all the Israelites, and the people felt very sad.
40 They got up early in the morning, went to the mountain top, and said, “Look, we’re here and will go to the place God has promised, because we have sinned.”
41 Moses asked, “Why do you break God’s command? It will not succeed.”
42 Do not go up, because God is not with you; so you won’t be defeated by your enemies.
43 The Amalekites and the Canaanites are in front of you, and you will die by the sword because you have turned away from God, so God will not be with you.
44 But they dared to go up to the hilltop; still, the box of God’s agreement and Moses did not leave the camp.
45 The Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill came down, attacked them, and beat them all the way to Hormah.