The Sinful Failure at Kadesh-barnea

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We traveled from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.

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I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God gives to us.

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Behold, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Don’t be afraid, neither be dismayed.”

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You came near to me, everyone of you, and said, “Let us send men before us, that they may search the land for us, and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up, and the cities to which we shall come.”

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The thing pleased me well. I took twelve men of you, one man for every tribe.

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They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of Eshcol, and spied it out.

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They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, “It is a good land which the LORD our God gives to us.”

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Yet you wouldn’t go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God.

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You murmured in your tents, and said, “Because the LORD hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.

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Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our heart melt, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to the sky. Moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there!’”

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Then I said to you, “Don’t dread, neither be afraid of them.

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The LORD your God who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

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and in the wilderness, where you have seen how that the LORD your God bore you, as a man does bear his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.”

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Yet in this thing you didn’t believe the LORD your God,

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who went before you on the way, to seek out a place for you to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to show you by what way you should go, and in the cloud by day.

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The LORD heard the voice of your words, and was angry, and swore, saying,

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“Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land, which I swore to give to your fathers,

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except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it. I will give the land that he has trodden on to him, and to his children, because he has wholly followed the LORD.”

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Also the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, saying, “You also shall not go in there.

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Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.

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Moreover your little ones, whom you said should be captured or killed, and your children, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there, and I will give it to, and they shall possess it.

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But as for you, turn, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way to the Sea of Suf.”

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Then you answered and said to me, “We have sinned against the LORD, we will go up and fight, according to all that the LORD our God commanded us.” Every man of you put on his weapons of war, and presumed to go up into the hill country.

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The LORD said to me, “Tell them, ‘Don’t go up, neither fight; for I am not among you; lest you be struck before your enemies.’”

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So I spoke to you, and you didn’t listen; but you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD, and were presumptuous, and went up into the hill country.

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The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.

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You returned and wept before the LORD; but the LORD didn’t listen to your voice, nor turn his ear to you.

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So you stayed in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you remained.

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