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

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

³ And why does Jehovah bring us to 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 sons of Israel.

⁶ And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes.

⁷ And they spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.

⁸ If Jehovah delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey.

⁹ Only do not rebel against Jehovah, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their defense 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 to all the sons of Israel.

¹¹ And Jehovah said to 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 to Jehovah, Then the Egyptians will hear it, for thou brought 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 are in the midst of this people, for thou Jehovah are seen face to face, and thy cloud stands over them, and thou go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵ Now if thou shall 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 swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.

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

¹⁸ Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

¹⁹ Pardon, I pray thee, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy loving kindness, and according as thou have 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 who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have challenged me 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 who despised me see it.

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

²⁵ Now the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley. Tomorrow turn ye, and get you into the wilderness by 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 congregation that murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel, which they murmur against me.

²⁸ Say to them, As I live, says Jehovah, surely as ye have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.

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

³⁰ surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell in it, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

³¹ But your little ones, that ye said would be a prey, them I will 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 sons 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, ye shall bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my alienation.

³⁵ I, Jehovah, have spoken, surely I will do this to 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 who brought 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 who went to spy out the land.

³⁹ And Moses told these words to all the sons of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

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

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

⁴² Do not go 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 have turned back from following Jehovah, therefore Jehovah will not be with you.