Numbers 14:11-38 - God's Judgment Of Israel's Rebellion

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me disrespectfully and reject Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the [miraculous] signs which I have performed among them? ¹² I will strike them with the pestilence (plague) and dispossess them, and will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

¹³ But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought up these people from among them, ¹⁴ and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are among these people [of Israel], that You, Lord, are seen face to face, while Your cloud stands over them; and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵ Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations (Gentiles) that have heard of Your fame will say, ¹⁶ ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which He promised to give them, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’

¹⁷ But now, please, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared, saying, ¹⁸ ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving wickedness and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting (avenging) the wickedness and guilt of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generations [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers].’ ¹⁹ Please pardon the wickedness and guilt of these people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You have forgiven these people, from Egypt even until now.”

²⁰ So the Lord said, “I have pardoned them according to your word; ²¹ but indeed as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. ²² Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My [miraculous] signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, ²³ will by no means see the land which I swore to [give to] their fathers; nor will any who treated me disrespectfully and rejected Me see it. ²⁴ But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land into which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it. ²⁵ Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley; tomorrow turn and set out for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.”

²⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ²⁷ “How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who murmur [in discontent] against Me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they are making against Me. ²⁸ Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just what you have spoken in My hearing I will most certainly do to you; ²⁹ your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, even all who were numbered of you, your entire number from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against Me. ³⁰ Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, not one of you shall enter the land in which I swore [an oath] to settle you. ³¹ But your children whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will know the land which you have despised and rejected. ³² But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. ³³ Your sons shall be wanderers and shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness (spiritual infidelity), until your corpses are consumed in the wilderness. ³⁴ According to the number of days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], forty days, for each day, you shall bear and suffer a year for your sins and guilt, for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement because of your sin]. ³⁵ I, the Lord, have spoken. I will most certainly do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed [by war, disease, and plagues], and here they shall die.’”

³⁶ As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation murmur and complain against him by bringing back a bad report concerning the land, ³⁷ even those [ten] men who brought back the very bad report of the land died by a plague before the Lord. ³⁸ But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive out of those men who went to spy out the land.