|
The Fourth Book of Moses: Called Numbers, Chapter 14
|
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 unto them, Would God that we
had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this
wilderness!
|
3 |
And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto 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, which
were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
|
7 |
And they
spake unto 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 delight in us, then he will bring us into this land,
and give it 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 defence is departed from
them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
|
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.
|
11 |
And the LORD said unto 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 shewed 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 unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall 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 sware unto 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
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 unto the third and fourth
generation.
|
19 |
Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according
unto 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 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 hearkened to my voice;
|
23 |
Surely they
shall not see the land which I sware unto 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 whereinto he went; and his seed shall
possess it.
|
25 |
(Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.)
Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the
Red sea.
|
26 |
And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
|
27 |
Howlong 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 unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have
spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:
|
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.
|
30 |
Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I
sware 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 carcases, they 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 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 unto 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, 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,
|
37 |
Even those men that did bring up 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, which
were of the men that went to search the land, lived still.
|
39 |
And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel:
and the people mourned greatly.
|
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 unto the
place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.
|
41 |
And Moses said, Wherefore 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 unto 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 unto Hormah.
|