¹ And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.

² And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would that we had died in this wilderness!

³ And wherefore doth Jehovah bring us unto this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey: were it not better for us to return into Egypt?

⁴ And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

⁵ Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

⁶ And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of them that spied out the land, rent their clothes:

⁷ and they spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land.

⁸ If Jehovah delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it unto us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.

⁹ Only rebel not against Jehovah, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is removed from over them, and Jehovah is with us: fear them not.

¹⁰ But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of Jehovah appeared in the tent of meeting unto all the children of Israel.

¹¹ And Jehovah said unto Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have wrought among them?

¹² I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they.

¹³ And Moses said unto Jehovah, Then the Egyptians will hear it; for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;

¹⁴ and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that thou Jehovah art in the midst of this people; for thou Jehovah art seen face to face, and thy cloud standeth over them, and thou goest before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵ Now if thou shalt kill this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,

¹⁶ Because Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness.

¹⁷ And now, I pray thee, let the power of the Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,

¹⁸ Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

¹⁹ Pardon, I pray thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy lovingkindness, and according as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.

²⁰ And Jehovah said, I have pardoned according to thy word:

²¹ but in very deed, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah;

²² because all those men that have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;

²³ surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that despised me see it:

²⁴ but my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.

²⁵ Now the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley: to-morrow turn ye, and get you into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.

²⁶ And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,

²⁷ How long [shall I bear] with this evil congregation, that murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.

²⁸ Say unto them, As I live, saith Jehovah, surely as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:

²⁹ your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, that have murmured against me,

³⁰ surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware that I would make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

³¹ But your little ones, that ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have rejected.

³² But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

³³ And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your whoredoms, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness.

³⁴ After the number of the days in which ye spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my alienation.

³⁵ I, Jehovah, have spoken, surely this will I do unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

³⁶ And the men, whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report against the land,

³⁷ even those men that did bring up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before Jehovah.

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

³⁹ And Moses told these words unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.

⁴⁰ And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up to the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we are here, and will go up unto the place which Jehovah hath promised: for we have sinned.

⁴¹ And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of Jehovah, seeing it shall not prosper?

⁴² Go not up, for Jehovah is not among you; that ye be not smitten down before your enemies.

⁴³ For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned back from following Jehovah, therefore Jehovah will not be with you.

⁴⁴ But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.

⁴⁵ Then the Amalekite came down, and the Canaanite who dwelt in that mountain, and smote them and beat them down, even unto Hormah.

¹ And the high priest said, Are these things so?

² And he said, Brethren and fathers, hearken: The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,

³ and said unto him, Get thee out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.

⁴ Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Haran: and from thence, when his father was dead, [God] removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell:

⁵ and he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: and he promised that he would give it to him in possession, and to his seed after him, when [as yet] he had no child.

⁶ And God spake on this wise, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage, and treat them ill, four hundred years.

⁷ And the nation to which they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place.

⁸ And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so [Abraham] begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac [begat] Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ And the patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt: and God was with him,

¹⁰ and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

¹¹ Now there came a famine over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.

¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent forth our fathers the first time.

¹³ And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph's race became manifest unto Pharaoh.

¹⁴ And Joseph sent, and called to him Jacob his father, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.

¹⁵ And Jacob went down into Egypt; and he died, himself and our fathers;

¹⁶ and they were carried over unto Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver of the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷ But as the time of the promise drew nigh which God vouchsafed unto Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

¹⁸ till there arose another king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.

¹⁹ The same dealt craftily with our race, and ill-treated our fathers, that they should cast out their babes to the end they might not live.

²⁰ At which season Moses was born, and was exceeding fair; and he was nourished three months in his father's house.

²¹ and when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.

²² And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and works.

²³ But when he was well-nigh forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.

²⁴ And seeing one [of them] suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, smiting the Egyptian:

²⁵ and he supposed that his brethren understood that God by his hand was giving them deliverance; but they understood not.

²⁶ And the day following he appeared unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?

²⁷ But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?

²⁸ Wouldest thou kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?

²⁹ And Moses fled at this saying, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons.

³⁰ And when forty years were fulfilled, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

³¹ And when Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold, there came a voice of the Lord,

³² I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. And Moses trembled, and durst not behold.

³³ And the Lord said unto him, Loose the shoes from thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

³⁴ I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I am come down to deliver them: and now come, I will send thee into Egypt.

³⁵ This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? him hath God sent [to be] both a ruler and a deliverer with the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶ This man led them forth, having wrought wonders and signs in Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.

³⁷ This is that Moses, who said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me.

³⁸ This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us:

³⁹ to whom our fathers would not be obedient, but thrust him from them, and turned back in their hearts unto Egypt,

⁴⁰ saying unto Aaron, Make us gods that shall go before us: for as for this Moses, who led us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.

⁴¹ And they made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

⁴² But God turned, and gave them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did ye offer unto me slain beasts and sacrifices Forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

⁴³ And ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of the god Rephan, The figures which ye made to worship them: And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

⁴⁴ Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he appointed who spake unto Moses, that he should make it according to the figure that he had seen.

⁴⁵ Which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations, that God thrust out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;

⁴⁶ who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷ But Solomon built him a house.

⁴⁸ Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in [houses] made with hands; as saith the prophet,

⁴⁹ The heaven is my throne, And the earth the footstool of my feet: What manner of house will ye build me? saith the Lord: Or what is the place of my rest?

⁵⁰ Did not my hand make all these things?

⁵¹ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye.

⁵² Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them that showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers;

⁵³ ye who received the law as it was ordained by angels, and kept it not.

⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

⁵⁵ But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

⁵⁶ and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.

⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord;

⁵⁸ and they cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹ And they stoned Stephen, calling upon [the Lord], and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

⁶⁰ And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.