1Then the whole community raised their voices and cried out, and the people wept all that night.
2All the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole community said to them, "We wish we had died in Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!
3Why is Yahweh bringing us to this land just to die by the sword? Our wives and children will be captured or killed! Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?"
4They said to one another, "Let's choose a new leader and return to Egypt."
5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in front of the entire assembly of the community of Israel.
6Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes.
7They spoke to the entire community of Israel, saying, "The land we went through to explore is an exceptionally good land.
8If Yahweh is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us; a land flowing with milk and honey.
9Just don't rebel against Yahweh, and don't be afraid of the people of the land, because we can easily defeat them. Their protection has been taken away from them, and Yahweh is with us. Don't be afraid of them."
10But the whole community threatened to stone them. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the people of Israel.
11Yahweh said to Moses, "How long will these people despise me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?
12I will strike them with a plague and disinherit them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are."
13Moses said to Yahweh, "Then the Egyptians will hear about it, because you brought these people out of Egypt with your great power.
14They will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Yahweh, are among these people; that you, Yahweh, are seen face to face; that your cloud stands over them; and that you lead them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15Now if you kill these people all at once, the nations who have heard about your fame will say,
16'Because Yahweh was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them, he has killed them in the wilderness.'
17So please, let the Lord's power be great, just as you have said:
18'Yahweh is slow to anger, full of faithful love, forgiving wrongdoing and rebellion, but he will by no means clear the guilty. He punishes the children for the sin of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation.'
19Please forgive the sin of these people according to the greatness of your faithful love, just as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now."
20Yahweh said, "I have forgiven them as you requested.
21But as surely as I live and as all the earth will be filled with the glory of Yahweh;
22All those men saw my glory and the miracles I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness. Yet, they tested me ten times and did not listen to me.
23Because of this, they will not see the land I promised to their ancestors. None of those who disrespected me will see it.
24But my servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed me completely. I will bring him into the land he explored, and his descendants will own it.
25Since the Amalekites and Canaanites live in the valley, tomorrow you must turn around and go back into the wilderness by the route to the Red Sea.'
26Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
27“How much longer must I put up with this wicked community that complains against me? I have heard the complaints of the people of Israel as they grumble against me.
28Tell them: ‘As surely as I live, declares Yahweh, I will do to you exactly what I heard you say.
29Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. All of you who were counted, from twenty years old and up, who complained against me,
30you will certainly not enter the land about which I swore I would settle you, except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
31However, your children, whom you said would be captured or killed, I will bring into the land. They will experience the land that you rejected.
32But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness.
33Your children will wander in the wilderness for forty years and suffer the consequences of your unfaithfulness, until your dead bodies are gone from the wilderness.
34For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins, and you will know what it means to be rejected by me.'
35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will definitely do this to this entire wicked community that has gathered against me. In this wilderness they will be consumed, and there they will die.”
36The men whom Moses sent to explore the land, who returned and caused the whole community to complain against him by spreading a bad report about the land,
37those very men who spread the bad report about the land died from a plague before Yahweh.
38But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh were the only ones who remained alive from the men who went to explore the land.
39Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, and the people grieved deeply.
40They got up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Here we are! We will go up to the place Yahweh promised, for we have sinned.”
41Moses said, “Why are you now disobeying Yahweh’s command? This will not succeed.
42Don’t go up there, because Yahweh is not with you, and you will be defeated by your enemies.
43The Amalekites and Canaanites are ahead of you, and you will die by the sword, because you turned away from following Yahweh. Therefore, Yahweh will not be with you.”
44But they defiantly went up to the top of the mountain. However, the ark of Yahweh’s covenant and Moses did not leave the camp.
45Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived on that mountain came down and attacked them, defeating them all the way to Hormah.