Numbers 14:1-19 ▼

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

2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron; and all the congregation said to them,

3 Would we had died in the land of Egypt! or in this wilderness, would we had died! and why does the Lord bring us into this land to fall in war? our wives and our children shall be for a prey: now then it is better to return into Egypt.

4 And they said one to another, Let us make a ruler, and return into Egypt.

5 And Moses and Aaron fell upon their face before all the congregation of the children of Israel.

6 But Joshua the son of Naue, and Chaleb the son of Jephonne, of the number of them that spied out the land, rent their garments,

7 and spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we surveyed is indeed extremely good.

8 If the Lord choose us, he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which flows with milk and honey.

9 Only depart not from the Lord; and fear ye not the people of the land, for they are meat for us; for the season of prosperity is departed from them, but the Lord is among us: fear them not.

10 And all the congregation bade stone them with stones; and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud on the tabernacle of witness to all the children of Israel.

11 And the Lord said to Moses, How long does this people provoke me? and how long do they refuse to believe me for all the signs which I have wrought among them?

12 I will smite them with death, and destroy them; and I will make of thee and of thy father's house a great nation, and much greater than this.

13 And Moses said to the Lord, So Egypt shall hear, for thou hast brought up this people from them by thy might.

14 Moreover all the dwellers upon this land have heard that thou art Lord in the midst of this people, who, O Lord, art seen by them face to face, and thy cloud rests upon them, and thou goest before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire.

15 And if thou shalt destroy this nation as one man; then all the nations that have heard thy name shall speak, saying,

16 Because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which he sware to them, he has overthrown them in the wilderness.

17 And now, O Lord, let thy strength be exalted, as thou spakest, saying,

18 The Lord is long-suffering and merciful, and true, removing transgressions and iniquities and sins, and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

19 Forgive this people their sin according to thy great mercy, as thou wast favourable to them from Egypt until now.