Israel Refuses to Enter the Land

¹That night, the entire community raised their voices and cried, and the people wept. ²All the Israelites complained bitterly against Moses and Aaron. The whole community said to them, "We wish we had died back in Egypt! We wish we had died right here in this wilderness!" ³Why has the LORD brought us to this land only to die by the sword? Our wives and children will become prey. Wouldn't it be better for us to return to Egypt? ⁴They said to each other, "Let's pick a new leader and head back to Egypt." ⁵Moses and Aaron fell facedown on the ground in front of the entire Israelite assembly. ⁶Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the men who had explored the land, tore their clothes in grief. ⁷They spoke to the whole Israelite community and said, "The land we explored is an incredibly good land!" ⁸"If the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us into that land and give it to us — a land flowing with milk and honey." ⁹"Just don't rebel against the LORD, and don't fear the people living there. We will devour them like bread! Their protection is gone, and the LORD is with us. Don't be afraid of them." ¹⁰But the whole community was ready to stone them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the Tent of Meeting for all the Israelites to see. ¹¹The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to trust me, despite all the signs I've performed among them?" ¹²"I will strike them with a plague and wipe them out. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are." ¹³But Moses said to the LORD, "The Egyptians will hear about it! After all, you used your power to bring this people out from among them." ¹⁴"And they will tell the people living in this land. They've already heard that you, LORD, are among this people — that you, LORD, are seen face to face, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go ahead of them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." ¹⁵"If you kill all these people at once, the nations that have heard about you will say," ¹⁶"'The LORD wasn't able to bring these people into the land he promised them, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.'" ¹⁷"So now, I beg you, let the power of the Lord be displayed in its greatness, just as you declared when you said," ¹⁸The LORD is slow to anger and has great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the 3rd and 4th generation. ¹⁹Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to your great mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. ²⁰The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked." ²¹"But as surely as I live, and as surely as the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD —" ²²"not one of the people who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness — who tested me 10 times and refused to listen to me —" ²³"not one of them will ever see the land I promised to their ancestors. No one who treated me with contempt will ever set foot in it." ²⁴"But my servant Caleb is different. He has a different spirit in him and has followed me wholeheartedly. I will bring him into the land he explored, and his descendants will possess it." ²⁵"Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valley, turn around tomorrow and head back into the wilderness along the road toward the Red Sea." ²⁶The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron and said, ²⁷"How long must I put up with this wicked community that keeps complaining against me? I have heard every word of the Israelites' grumbling." ²⁸"Tell them: 'As surely as I live,' declares the LORD, 'I will do to you exactly what I heard you say.'" ²⁹"Your dead bodies will drop in this wilderness — every one of you who was counted in the census, everyone 20 years old and older who has complained against me." ³⁰"Not one of you will enter the land I swore to give you as a home — except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun." ³¹But your little ones, whom you said would be a prey, I will bring them in, and they will know the land you rejected. ³²"As for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness." ³³Your children will wander in the wilderness for 40 years and bear the consequences of your whoredoms, until your bodies have decayed in the wilderness. ³⁴You explored the land for 40 days, so you will bear your iniquities for 40 years — one year for each day. Then you will know my breach of promise. ³⁵"I, the LORD, have spoken. I will certainly do this to every member of this wicked community that has banded together against me. They will waste away in this wilderness, and here they will die." ³⁶The men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and caused the whole community to complain against him by spreading a slander about the land, ³⁷those men who spread the bad report about the land were struck down by a plague and died in the presence of the LORD. ³⁸Of all the men who had gone to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived. ³⁹When Moses reported all of this to the Israelites, the people were overcome with grief. ⁴⁰Early the next morning, they headed up toward the hilltop and said, "We're here now! We'll go up to the place the LORD promised. We know we've sinned." ⁴¹But Moses said, "Why are you disobeying the LORD's command? This will not succeed." ⁴²"Don't go up there! The LORD is not with you, and you will be crushed by your enemies." ⁴³"The Amalekites and Canaanites are waiting for you there, and you will be cut down by the sword. Because you have turned away from the LORD, the LORD will not be with you." ⁴⁴But they stubbornly charged up toward the hilltop anyway. Neither the ark of the LORD's covenant nor Moses left the camp. ⁴⁵The Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them, beating them back and chasing them all the way to Hormah.