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 to them, O that we had died in the land of Egypt! or O that we had died in this wilderness!

³ And why hath the LORD brought us to this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should 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 searched the land, rent their clothes:

⁷ And they spoke to all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.

⁸ If the LORD delighteth in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.

⁹ Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense has departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

¹⁰ But all the congregation required to stone them with stones: and the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.

¹¹ And the LORD said to Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among them?

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

¹³ And Moses said to the LORD, 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: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day-time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.

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

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

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

¹⁸ The LORD is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

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

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

²¹ But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.

²² Because all those men who have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;

²³ Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked 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 into which he went; and his seed shall possess it.

²⁵ (Now the Amalekites, and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To-morrow turn you, and pass into the wilderness, by the way of the Red sea.

²⁶ And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

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

²⁸ Say to them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you:

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

³⁰ Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

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

³² But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness.

³³ And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your lewd deeds, until your carcasses shall be wasted in the wilderness.

³⁴ After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days (each day for a year) shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

³⁵ I the LORD have said, I will surely do it to all this evil congregation, that are gathered against me: in this wilderness, they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

³⁶ And the men whom Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing a slander upon the land,

³⁷ Even those men that brought the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

³⁸ But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of the men that went to search the land, lived still.

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

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

⁴¹ And Moses said, Why now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.

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

⁴³ For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.

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

⁴⁵ Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even to Hormah.