The Wilderness Years

Let me have from among you wise and understanding men, and such whose conversation is approved among your tribes, that I may appoint them your rulers.

Then you answered me: The thing is good which thou meanest to do.

And I took out of your tribes men wise and honourable, and appointed them rulers, tribunes, and centurions, and officers over fifties, and over tens, who might teach you all things.

And I commanded them, saying: Hear them, and judge that which is just: whether he be one of your country, or a stranger.

There shall be no difference of persons, you shall hear the little as well as the great: neither shall you respect any man's person, because it is the judgment of God. And if any thing seem hard to you, refer it to me, and I will hear it.

And I commanded you all things that you were to do.

And departing from Horeb, we passed through the terrible and vast wilderness, which you saw, by the way of the mountain of the Amorrhite, as the Lord our God had commanded us. And when we were come into Cadesbarne,

I said to you: You are come to the mountain of the Amorrhite, which the Lord our God will give to us.

See the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee: go up and possess it, as the Lord our God hath spoken to thy fathers: fear not, nor be any way discouraged.

And you came all to me, and said: Let us send men who may view the land, and bring us word what way we shall go up, and to what cities we shall go.

And because the saying pleased me, I sent of you twelve men, one of every tribe:

Who, when they had set forward and had gone up to the mountains, came as far as the valley of the cluster: and having viewed the land,

Taking of the fruits thereof, to shew its fertility, they brought them to us, and said: The land is good, which the Lord our God will give us.

And you would not go up, but being incredulous to the word of the Lord our God,

You murmured in your tents, and said: The Lord hateth us, and therefore he hath brought us out of the land of Egypt, that he might deliver us into the hand of the Amorrhite, and destroy us.

Whither shall we go up? the messengers have terrified our hearts, saying: The multitude is very great, and taller than we: the cities are great, and walled up to the sky, we have seen the sons of the Enacims there.

And I said to you: Fear not, neither be ye afraid of them:

The Lord God, who is your leader, himself will fight for you, as he did in Egypt in the sight of all.

And in the wilderness (as thou hast seen) the Lord thy God hath carried thee, as a man is wont to carry his little son, all the way that you have come, until you came to this place.

And yet for all this you did not believe the Lord your God,

Who went before you in the way, and marked out the place, wherein you should pitch your tents, in the night shewing you the way by fire, and in the day by the pillar of a cloud.

And when the Lord had heard the voice of your words, he was angry and swore, and said:

Not one of the men of this wicked generation shall see the good land, which I promised with an oath to your fathers:

Except Caleb the son of Jephone: for he shall see it, and to him I will give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath followed the Lord.

Neither is his indignation against the people to be wondered at, since the Lord was angry with me also on your account, and said: Neither shalt thou go in thither.