Chapter 14 And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people
wept that night.
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!
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!
And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the
congregation of the children of Israel, and Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the
son of Jephannah, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes.
And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which
we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land.
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.
Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land,
for they are bred for us.
Their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us.
Fear them not.
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.
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 showed among them, I will smite them with the
pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and
mightier than they.
And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, for thou
broughtest up this people in thy might from among them.
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 daytime
in a pillar of a cloud and in a pillar of fire by night.
Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard
the fame of thee will speak, saying, 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.
And now I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast
spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and
transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty.
Visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation.
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.
And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word.
But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the
Lord, 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, surely they shall not see the land which I
sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoke me see it.
But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and hath followed
me fully, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went, and his seed shall
possess it.
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.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 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.
Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine
ears, so will I do to you.
Your carcasses 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.
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.
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.
But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness.
And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your
whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.
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.
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.
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,
even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague
before the Lord.
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.
And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel, and the people mourned
greatly.
And they rose up early in the morning, and got 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.
And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord?
But it shall not prosper.
Go not up, for the Lord is not among you, that ye be not smitten before your
enemies.
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.
But they presumed to go up unto the hilltop.
Nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord and Moses departed not out of the
camp.
Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that
hill, and smote them, and discomforted them, even unto Hormah.