Numbers

14 Then did all the assembly lift up and give forth their voice,—and the people wept throughout that night.

2 And all the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron,—and all the assembly said unto them—Oh that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or in this wilderness, oh that we had died!

3 Wherefore then is Yahweh bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and little ones will become a prey! Would it not be well for us to go back towards Egypt?

4 And they said one to another,—Let us appoint a head, and let us go back towards Egypt.

5 Then did Moses and Aaron fall upon their faces,—before all the convocation of the assembly of the sons of Israel.

6 But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of them who spied out the land, rent their clothes;

7 and spake unto all the assembly of the sons of Israel, saying,—As for the land through which we passed to spy it out, Good is the land exceedingly

8 If Yahweh delight in us, then will he bring us into this land, and give it unto us,—A land which doth flow with milk and honey.

9 Only against Yahweh do not rebel. Do not ye fear the people of the land, For our food they are,—Their shade hath departed from over them, And Yahweh is with us, Do not fear them!

10 But when all the assembly bade stone them with stones, the glory of Yahweh appeared in the tent of meeting, unto all the sons of Israel.

11 Then said Yahweh unto Moses, How long must this people despise me? And how long can they not believe in me, in view of all the signs which I have done in their midst?

12 Let me smite them with pestilence and disinherit them,—And make thee into a nation greater and more mighty than they!

13 Then said Moses unto Yahweh,—So shall the Egyptians hear, For thou hast brought up in thy might this people out of their midst;

14 And will tell it unto the inhabitants of this land: They have heard That thou, Yahweh, art in the midst of this people,—That eye to eye is he seen—thou Yahweh, And thy cloud is standing over them, And in a pillar of cloud thou thyself art going on before them by day, And in a pillar of fire by night.

15 As soon, therefore, as thou hast put to death this people as one man, so soon will the nations who have heard thy fame speak, saying:

16 Because Yahweh was not able to bring in this people into the land which he had sworn unto them, therefore did he slay them in the desert.

17 Now, therefore, I beseech thee, let the might of My Lord be magnified,—according as thou didst speak, saying:

18 Yahweh—slow to anger and great in lovingkindness, Forgiving iniquity and transgression: Though he will not leave wholly unpunished, Visiting the iniquity of fathers upon sons, Upon a third generation and upon a fourth.

19 Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people, According to the greatness of thy lovingkindness,—And according as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even thus far.

20 And Yahweh said, I have pardoned according to thy word;

21 Nevertheless, as I live,—and that all the earth may be filled with the glory of Yahweh,

22 Verily, none of the men who have been beholding my glory and my signs, which I have done in Egypt and in the desert,—and have put me to the proof these ten times, and have not hearkened unto my voice,

23 shall see the land, which I sware to their fathers,—yea, none of my despisers shall see it.

24 But my servant Caleb—because there was another spirit with him, and he followed me fully, therefore will I bring him into the land whereinto he entered, and his seed shall possess it.

25 Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites are dwelling in the valley,—to-morrow turn ye away; and set yourselves forward towards the desert by the way of the Red Sea.

26 Then spake Yahweh unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying:

27 How long, as regardeth this evil assembly, are they to be murmuring against me? The murmuring of the sons of Israel, which they have been murmuring against me, have I heard.

28 Say unto them: As I live, is the oracle of Yahweh: Surely, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do unto you:—

29 In this desert shall your dead bodies fall, And none of you who were numbered in all your counting, from twenty years old and upwards,—who have murmured against me,

30 none of you shall enter into the land, as to which I uplifted my hand to give you an abode therein,—save Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun:

31 whereas your little ones, of whom ye said they should become a prey, I will bring them in, and they shall acknowledge the land which ye refused.

32 But your own dead bodies shall fall in this desert;

33 and your sons shall be shepherds in the desert forty years, and shall bear your unchastities,—until your dead bodies are consumed in the desert.

34 By the number of the days wherein ye spied out the land—forty days, each day for a year, shall they bear your iniquities—forty years,—so shall ye know my opposition.

35 I—Yahweh, have spoken, Verily, this will I do to all this evil assembly, who have conspired against me,—In this desert shall they be consumed, And there shall they die.

36 Now, as for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land,—who returned and caused all the assembly to murmur against him by giving out a rumour against the land,

37 they died—the men who gave out an evil rumor of the land,—by the plague before Yahweh.

38 But Joshua son of Nun, and Caleb son of Jephunneh, remained alive—of those men who went to spy out the land.

39 And Moses spake these words unto all the sons of Israel,—and the people were greatly depressed.

40 So they arose early in the morning, and went up into the top of the mountain, saying,—We are here—therefore will we go up into the place as to which Yahweh hath said that we have sinned.

41 But Moses said, Wherefore is it that ye are going beyond the bidding of Yahweh,—since that cannot prosper?

42 Do not go up, For Yahweh is not in your midst,—Lest ye be smitten down before your enemies.

43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, So shall ye fall by the sword,—For inasmuch as ye have turned back from following Yahweh, Therefore will Yahweh not be with you.

44 But they presumptuously ascended into the top of the mountain,—though neither the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, nor Moses, moved out of the midst of the camp.

45 So then the Amalekites and the Canaanites that dwelt in that mountain came down,—and smote them and routed them even unto Hormah.