The Wilderness Years

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it!”

But the men who had gone up with him replied, “We cannot go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are!”

So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had spied out: “The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature.

We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”

Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.

All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!

Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”

Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.

Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes

and said to the whole congregation of Israel, “The land we passed through and explored is an exceedingly good land.

If the LORD delights in us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and He will give it to us.

Only do not rebel against the LORD, and do not be afraid of the people of the land, for they will be like bread for us. Their protection has been removed, and the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them!”

But the whole congregation threatened to stone Joshua and Caleb. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to all the Israelites at the Tent of Meeting.

And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?

I will strike them with a plague and destroy them—and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”

But Moses said to the LORD, “The Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought this people from among them.

And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have already heard that You, O LORD, are in the midst of this people, that You, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

If You kill this people as one man, the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,

‘Because the LORD was unable to bring this people into the land He swore to give them, He has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’

So now I pray, may the power of my Lord be magnified, just as You have declared:

‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’

Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your loving devotion, just as You have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”

“I have pardoned them as you requested,” the LORD replied.

“Yet as surely as I live and as surely as the whole earth is filled with the glory of the LORD,