Bible Verses About Murmuring

Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,

“How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.

So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.

Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.

Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.

As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.

Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.

I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this entire wicked congregation, which has conspired against Me. They will meet their end in the wilderness, and there they will die.”

So the men Moses had sent to spy out the land, who had returned and made the whole congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report about the land—

those men who had brought out the bad report about the land—were struck down by a plague before the LORD.

a rebellion against Moses, along with 250 men of Israel renowned as leaders of the congregation and representatives in the assembly.

They came together against Moses and Aaron and told them, “You have taken too much upon yourselves! For everyone in the entire congregation is holy, and the LORD is in their midst. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? Must you also appoint yourself as ruler over us?

Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? No, we will not come!”

The next day the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the LORD’s people!”

“Get away from this congregation so that I may consume them in an instant.” And Moses and Aaron fell facedown.

Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the LORD; the plague has begun.”

The LORD said to Moses, “Put Aaron’s staff back in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign for the rebellious, so that you may put an end to their grumbling against Me, lest they die.”

So Moses did as the LORD had commanded him.

Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered against Moses and Aaron.

The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the LORD!

Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here?

and spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”