Numbers 14:26-45

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron again, saying, “How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are voicing against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you; your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. By no means will you come into the land where I swore to settle you, except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. Your children, however, whom you said would become plunder—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. Also, your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your bodies perish in the wilderness. In accordance with the number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your guilt a year, that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition. I, the Lord, have spoken, I certainly will do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. They shall be worn out in this wilderness, and there they shall die.’ ” As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and led all the congregation to grumble against him by bringing a bad report about the land, those men who brought the bad report of the land also died by a plague in the presence of the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive out of those men who went to spy out the land. Now when Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned greatly. In the morning, however, they got up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, “Here we are; and we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.” But Moses said, “Why then are you violating the command of the Lord, when doing so will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, to prevent you from being defeated by your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there to confront you, and you will fall by the sword, since you have turned back from following the Lord. And the Lord will not be with you.” But they foolishly dared to go up to the ridge of the hill country; neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses left the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, and struck them and scattered them as far as Hormah.