⁴ Now this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: All the males who came out of Egypt who were men of fighting age had died in the wilderness along the way after leaving Egypt. ⁵ All of the people who had come out were circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness along the way after leaving Egypt were not circumcised. ⁶ The children of Israel had traveled forty years in the wilderness until all the people, the men of fighting age who came out of Egypt, died, because they did not obey the Lord. The Lord had sworn not to let them see the land that He had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.