Numbers 14:22-38
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
22 of all the people who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness,(A) and who nevertheless have put me to the test ten times already and have not obeyed me, 23 not one shall see the land which I promised on oath to their ancestors. None of those who have spurned me shall see it. 24 But as for my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and follows me unreservedly,(B) I will bring him into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall possess it. 25 But now, since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys,[a] turn away tomorrow and set out into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea road.
26 The Lord also said to Moses and Aaron: 27 How long will this wicked community grumble against me?(C) I have heard the grumblings of the Israelites against me. 28 Tell them:[b] “By my life”—oracle of the Lord—“I will do to you just what I have heard you say. 29 Here in the wilderness(D) your dead bodies shall fall. Of all your men of twenty years or more, enrolled in your registration, who grumbled against me, 30 not one of you shall enter the land where I solemnly swore to settle you, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun. 31 Your little ones, however, who you said would be taken as spoil, I will bring in, and they shall know the land you rejected.(E) 32 But as for you, your bodies shall fall here in the wilderness, 33 while your children will wander for forty years, suffering for your infidelity, till the last of you lies dead in the wilderness.(F) 34 Corresponding to the number of days you spent reconnoitering the land—forty days—you shall bear your punishment one year for each day: forty years. Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me. 35 I, the Lord, have spoken; and I will surely do this to this entire wicked community that conspired against me: here in the wilderness they shall come to their end and there they will die.”
36 And the men whom Moses had sent to reconnoiter the land(G) and who on returning had set the whole community grumbling against him by spreading discouraging reports about the land— 37 these men who had spread discouraging reports about the land were struck down by the Lord and died. 38 Only Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, survived of all the men who had gone to reconnoiter the land.(H)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 14:25 The valleys: the low-lying plains in the Negeb and along the seacoast and in the Jordan depression, as well as the higher valleys in the mountains farther north: cf. v. 45.
- 14:28–29 God punished the grumblers by giving them their wish; cf. v. 2. Their lack of trust in God is cited in 1 Cor 10:10 and Hb 3:12–18 as a warning for Christians.
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