¹ And the whole assembly 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 assembly said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! or in this wilderness would that we had died!

³ And why is Jehovah bringing us to this land that we may fall by the sword, that our wives and our little ones may become a prey? Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?

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

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

⁶ And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of them that searched out the land, rent their garments.

⁷ And they spoke to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it out, is a very, very good land.

⁸ If Jehovah delight in us, he will bring us into this land, and give it us, a land that flows with milk and honey;

⁹ only rebel not against Jehovah; and fear not the people of the land; for they shall be our food. Their defence is departed from them, and Jehovah is with us: fear them not.

¹⁰ And the whole assembly said that they should be stoned with stones. And the glory of Jehovah appeared in the tent of meeting to all the children of Israel.

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

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

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

¹⁴ and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land, [who] have heard that thou, Jehovah, art in the midst of this people, that thou, Jehovah, lettest thyself be seen eye to eye, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night;

¹⁵ if thou now slayest this people as one man, then the nations that have heard thy fame will speak, saying,

¹⁶ Because Jehovah was not able to bring this people into the land that he had sworn unto them, he has therefore slain them in the wilderness.

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

¹⁸ Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in goodness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth [generation].

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

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

²¹ But as surely as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah!

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

²³ shall in no wise see the land which I did swear unto their fathers: none of them that despised me shall see it.

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

²⁵ (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley.) To-morrow turn you, and take your journey into the wilderness, on the way to the Red sea.

²⁶ And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

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

²⁸ Say unto them, As surely as I live, saith Jehovah, if I do not do unto you as ye have spoken in mine ears!

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

³⁰ shall in no wise come into the land, concerning which I have lifted up my hand to make you dwell in it; save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

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

³² And as to you, your carcases shall fall in this wilderness.

³³ And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

³⁴ After the number of the days in which ye have searched out the land, forty days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities forty years, and ye shall know mine estrangement [from you].

³⁵ I Jehovah have spoken; I will surely do it unto all this evil assembly which have gathered together against me! in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

³⁶ And the men whom Moses had sent to search out the land, who returned, and made the whole assembly to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report upon the land,

³⁷ even those men who had brought up an evil report upon the land, died by a plague before Jehovah.

³⁸ But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, lived still of the men that had gone to search out the land.

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

⁴⁰ And they rose up early in the morning, and went up to the hill-top, saying, Here are we, and we will go up to the place of which Jehovah has spoken; for we have sinned.

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

⁴² Go not up, for Jehovah 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; for as ye have turned away from Jehovah, Jehovah will not be with you.

⁴⁴ Yet they presumed to go up to the hill-top; but the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and Moses, did not depart from the midst of the camp.

⁴⁵ And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt on that hill, came down and smote them, and cut them to pieces, as far as Hormah.

¹ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

² Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother.

³ And they committed whoredom in Egypt; they committed whoredom in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there were handled the teats of their virginity.

⁴ And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister; and they were mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

⁵ And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she lusted after her lovers, after the Assyrians [her] neighbours,

⁶ clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them attractive young men, horsemen riding upon horses.

⁷ And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, all of them the choice of the children of Asshur; and with all after whom she lusted, with all their idols she defiled herself.

⁸ Neither left she her whoredoms [brought] from Egypt; for in her youth they had lain with her, and had handled the breasts of her virginity, and poured their fornication upon her.

⁹ Therefore I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the children of Asshur, after whom she lusted.

¹⁰ These discovered her nakedness, they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword; and she became a name among women; and they executed judgment upon her.

¹¹ And her sister Oholibah saw [this], and was more corrupt in her passion than she, and in her fornications more than the whoredoms of her sister.

¹² She lusted after the children of Asshur [her] neighbours, governors and rulers, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them attractive young men.

¹³ And I saw that she was defiled: both took one way.

¹⁴ And she increased her fornications; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

¹⁵ girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them captains in appearance, [after] the likeness of the children of Babylon, of Chaldea, the land of their nativity.

¹⁶ And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she lusted after them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

¹⁷ And the children of Babylon came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their fornication; she too defiled herself with them, and her soul was alienated from them.

¹⁸ And she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness; and my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.

¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she played the harlot in the land of Egypt;

²⁰ and she lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is [as] the flesh of asses, and whose issue is [as] the issue of horses.

²¹ And thou didst look back to the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy teats by the Egyptians, for the breasts of thy youth.

²² Therefore, Oholibah, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy soul is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side.

²³ The children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, all the children of Asshur with them; all of them attractive young men, governors and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.

²⁴ And they shall come against thee [with] armour, chariots and wheels, and with an assemblage of peoples; they shall set themselves against thee [with] target, and shield, and helmet round about; and I will put judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.

²⁵ And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall cut off thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.

²⁶ They shall also strip the of thy garments, and take away thy fair jewels.

²⁷ And I will make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom [brought] from the land of Egypt; and thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

²⁸ For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give thee over into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy soul is alienated.

²⁹ And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare; so that the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy fornications.

³⁰ These things shall be done unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the nations, because thou hast defiled thyself with their idols.

³¹ Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; and I have given her cup into thy hand.

³² Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large; thou shalt be for a laughing-stock and a derision, [for] it containeth much.

³³ Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, the cup of thy sister Samaria;

³⁴ thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt gnaw the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah.

³⁵ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy fornications.

³⁶ And Jehovah said unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations.

³⁷ For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also passed over unto them their children, whom they bore unto me, to be devoured.

³⁸ Moreover this have they done unto me: in the same day have they defiled my sanctuary and profaned my sabbaths.

³⁹ For when they had slaughtered their children unto their idols, they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, thus have they done in the midst of my house.

⁴⁰ And furthermore, they sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments;

⁴¹ and satest upon a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hadst set mine incense and mine oil.

⁴² And the voice of a multitude living carelessly was with her; and with people of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, and they put bracelets upon their hands, and a beautiful crown upon their heads.

⁴³ And I said of her that was old in adulteries, Will she now commit her fornications, even she.

⁴⁴ And they went in unto her, as they go in unto a whorish woman: so went they in unto Oholah and unto Oholibah the lewd women.

⁴⁵ And righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women that shed blood; for they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

⁴⁶ For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will bring up an assemblage against them, and will give them to be driven hither and thither and spoiled.

⁴⁷ And the assemblage shall stone them with stones, and despatch them with their swords; they shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn their houses with fire.

⁴⁸ And I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, and all women shall receive instruction and shall not do according to your lewdness.

⁴⁹ And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; and ye shall know that I [am] the Lord Jehovah.