Numbers Chapter 14

Israel murmurs against Moses

14:1 AND all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried ; and the people wept that night.
14:2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron and the whole congregation said to them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
14:3 And wherefore has 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 ?
14:4 And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
14:5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
14:6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, [which were] of them that searched the land, rent their clothes
14:7 And they spake to all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, [is] an exceeding good land.
14:8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which flows with milk and honey.
14:9 Only rebel not ya’ll against the LORD, neither fear ya’ll the people of the land ; for they [are] bread for us their defence is departed from them, and the LORD [is] with us fear them not.
14:10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
14:11 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?
14:12 I will strike them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of ya’ll a greater nation and mightier than they.

Moses Intercedes

14:13 And Moses said to the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear [it],(for you brought up this people in your might from among them;)
14:14 And they will tell [it] to the inhabitants of this land [for] they have heard that you LORD [are] among this people, that you LORD are seen face to face, and [that] your cloud stands over them, and [that] you go before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.
14:15 Now [if] you will kill [all] this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of ya’ll will speak, saying,
14:16 Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.
14:17 And now, I beseech ya’ll , let the power of my Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying,
14:18 The LORD [is] longsuffering, 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].
14:19 Pardon, I beseech ya’ll , the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your mercy, and as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
14:20 And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to your word
14:21 But [as] truly [as] I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.
14:22 Because all those men which 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 listened to my voice ;
14:23 Surely they shall not see the land which I sware to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it
14:24 But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went ; and his seed shall possess it.

God’s sentence for murmuring

14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.
14:26 And the LORD spake to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
14:27 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.
14:28 Say to them, [As truly as] I live, says the LORD, as ya’ll have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you
14:29 Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness ; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,
14:30 Doubtless ya’ll shall not come into the land, [concerning] which I sware to make you stay therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
14:31 But your little ones, which ya’ll said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ya’ll have despised.
14:32 But [as for] you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
14:33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
14:34 After the number of the days in which ya’ll searched the land, [even] forty days, each day for a year, shall ya’ll bear your iniquities, [even] forty years, and ya’ll shall know my breach of promise.
14:35 I the LORD have said, I will surely do it to all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.
14:36 And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land,
14:37 Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.
14:38 But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, [which were] of the men that went to search the land, lived [still].
14:39 And Moses told these sayings to all the children of Israel and the people mourned greatly.
14:40 And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we [be here], and will go up to the place which the LORD has promised for we have sinned.
14:41 And Moses said, Wherefore now do ya’ll transgress the commandment of the LORD ? but it shall not prosper.
14:42 Go not up, for the LORD [is] not among you; that ya’ll be not struck down before your enemies.
14:43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites [are] there before you, and ya’ll shall fall by the sword because ya’ll are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.
14:44 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.
14:45 Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and struck them, and discomfited them, [even] to Hormah.