The People Rebel
1Then the whole congregation raised their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night. 2All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3Why is Yahweh bringing us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4And they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.” 5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the whole assembly of the congregation of the Israelites. 6Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had scouted out the land, tore their clothes 7and said to the whole congregation of the Israelites, “The land we passed through to scout out is an exceedingly 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. 9Only do not rebel against Yahweh, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are food for us. Their protection has been removed from them, and Yahweh is with us. Do not fear them.” 10But the whole congregation threatened to stone them. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.
Moses Intercedes
11Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have done among them? 12I will strike them with a plague and dispossess them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they are.” 13But Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it — for by your power you brought this people up from among them — 14and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Yahweh, are among this people, that you, Yahweh, are seen face to face, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 15Now if you kill this people all at once, the nations who have heard of your fame will say, 16‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them, he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ 17So now, please, let the power of my Lord be great, just as you have declared: 18‘Yahweh is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion — yet he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ 19Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now.”
The Sentence: Forty Years
20Yahweh said, “I have pardoned them, as you have asked. 21But as surely as I live, and as surely as the whole earth will be filled with the glory of Yahweh, 22none of the men who have seen my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tested me now these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23will see the land I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have despised me will see it. 24But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land he entered, and his descendants will possess it. 25Now since the Amalekites and the Canaanites are living in the valley, turn back tomorrow and set out for the wilderness, by the way of the Red Sea.” 26Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said, 27“How long shall this evil congregation go on grumbling against me? I have heard the complaints the Israelites are making against me. 28Say to them: As surely as I live — declares Yahweh — I will do to you exactly as you have spoken in my hearing. 29In this wilderness your corpses will fall — all of you who were counted, the whole number of you twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me. 30Not one of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. 31But your little ones, whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will know the land you have rejected. 32As for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. 33Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and will bear the consequences of your unfaithfulness, until your corpses are consumed in the wilderness. 34According to the number of days you scouted out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you will bear your iniquities for forty years, and you will know what it means to have me against you. 35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to this whole evil congregation who has conspired against me. In this wilderness they will meet their end, and there they will die.” 36Now the men Moses had sent to scout out the land, who returned and made the whole congregation grumble against him by spreading a bad report about the land — 37those men who spread the bad report about the land died by a plague before Yahweh. 38Only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who had gone to scout out the land.
The Failed Attack at Hormah
39When Moses reported these words to all the Israelites, the people mourned greatly. 40They rose early the next morning and went up to the top of the hill country, saying, “Here we are; we will go up to the place Yahweh promised, for we have sinned.” 41But Moses said, “Why are you now transgressing the command of Yahweh? This will not succeed. 42Do not go up, for Yahweh is not among you, and you will be struck down before your enemies. 43For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there facing you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from following Yahweh, Yahweh will not be with you.” 44But they presumed to go up to the top of the hill country, even though the ark of the covenant of Yahweh and Moses did not leave the camp. 45Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them, crushing them all the way to Hormah.
