Numbers 14:1-19 ▼

1 THEN all the congregation was in commotion, and lifted up their voices 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 to them, Would God we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would God that we had died in this wilderness!

3 Why has the LORD brought us into this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should be a prey? We were better off when we dwelt in Egypt.

4 And they said one to another, Let us appoint a leader, and let us return to 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 Jophaniah, who were of those who had spied out the land, rent their clothes;

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

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

9 Only do not rebel against the LORD, neither be afraid of the people of the land; for their conquest will be as easy as eating bread; their strength has left them, and the LORD is with us; fear them not.

10 But the whole congregation said to stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.

11 And the LORD said to Moses, How long will this people provoke 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 pestilence, and destroy them, and I will make of you a nation which is greater and mightier than they.

13 And Moses said to the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it (for thou didst bring 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 in the midst of this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud stands over them, and that thou goest before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

15 And if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations who have heard the fame of thee will say,

16 Because the LORD 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, let thy power, O LORD, be great according as thou hast spoken, saying,

18 The LORD is longsuffering and of great mercy, and thou forgivest iniquity and transgression, by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

19 Pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven them from Egypt even until now.