¹The whole congregation lifted up and gave out their voice, and the people wept that night.

²All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and all the congregation said to them, If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or in this wilderness, if only we had died!

³Why is Yahweh bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our children will become plunder. Would it not be good for us to return to Egypt?

⁴They said, each man to his brother, Let us set a head over us and let us return to Egypt.

⁵Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

⁶Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had scouted out the land, tore their garments.

⁷They said to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: The land that we passed through it to scout it is good, the land is very, very good.

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

⁹Only, do not rebel against Yahweh; and you, do not fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their shade has been removed from over them, and Yahweh is with us. Do not fear them.

¹⁰All the congregation said to stone them with stones, and the weightiness of Yahweh appeared at the tent of meeting to all the children of Israel.

¹¹Yahweh said to Moses, How long will this people spurn me, and how long will they not believe in me, in all the signs that I have done in their midst?

¹²I will strike them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

¹³Moses said to Yahweh: The Egyptians will hear that you brought up this people by your strength from among them,

¹⁴and they will say to the dwellers of this land: They have heard that you, Yahweh, are in the midst of this people—you who were seen eye to eye, Yahweh—and your cloud stands over them, and in a pillar of cloud you go before them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵If you put to death this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your report will say:

¹⁶Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he slaughtered them in the wilderness.

¹⁷And now, please, let the strength of my Lord become great, as you spoke, saying:

¹⁸Yahweh is slow to anger and great in loyal love, taking away guilt and transgression, but he will by no means leave unpunished, visiting the guilt of the fathers on the children, on the third generation, and on the fourth generation.

¹⁹Forgive, please, the guilt of this people according to the greatness of your loyal love, and just as you have taken it away for this people, from Egypt until now.

²⁰Yahweh said, I have forgiven, according to your word.

²¹But as surely as I live, the weightiness of Yahweh will fill all the land.

²²For all the men who have seen my weightiness and my signs that I made in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have tested me these ten times and have not listened to my voice,

²³they will not see the land that I swore to their fathers, and not one of all those who have spurned me will see it.

²⁴But my slave Caleb, because another breath was with him and he has fully followed after me, I will bring him into the land where he went, and his offspring will take possession of it.

²⁵Now the Amalekite and the Canaanite are dwelling in the valley. Tomorrow turn and set out for yourselves into the wilderness, by the way of the Sea of Reeds.

²⁶Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

²⁷How long must this evil congregation go on, they who grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel, they who grumble against me.

²⁸Say to them, By my life, the utterance of Yahweh, surely just as you spoke in my ears, so I will do to you.

²⁹In this wilderness, your carcasses will fall, even all of you who were mustered, by your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me.

³⁰You will not come into the land where I lifted my hand to make you dwell in it, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³¹But your children, whom you said would become plunder, I will bring them in, and they will know the land that you rejected.

³²As for you, your carcasses will fall in this wilderness.

³³And your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and will bear your unfaithfulness, until your carcasses perish in the wilderness.

³⁴According to the number of the days that you scouted the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, you will bear your guilt forty years, and you will know my opposition.

³⁵I, Yahweh, have spoken: surely this I will do to all this evil congregation, those who have gathered against me. In this wilderness they will perish, and there they will die.

³⁶As for the men whom Moses sent to scout the land, who returned and caused all the congregation to grumble against him by bringing out a bad report about the land,

³⁷And the men who brought out the evil report of the land died by a plague before Yahweh.

³⁸But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh lived, out of those men who went to scout the land.

³⁹Moses spoke these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned exceedingly.

⁴⁰They rose early in the morning and went up to the head of the mountain, saying, Here we are! We will go up to the place that Yahweh spoke of, for we have sinned.

⁴¹Moses said, Why is it that you are passing over the mouth of Yahweh? It will not succeed.

⁴²Do not go up, for Yahweh is not in your midst, and you will not be struck down before your enemies.

⁴³For the Amalekite and the Canaanite are there before you, and you will fall by the sword; because you have turned back from following Yahweh, Yahweh will not be with you.

⁴⁴But they acted heedlessly, going up to the head of the mountain, though the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and Moses, did not depart from the midst of the camp.

⁴⁵Then the Amalekite and the Canaanite who dwelt in that mountain came down, struck them, and crushed them as far as Hormah.