Numbers 14

¹Therefore all the Multitude crying out wept that night,

²and all the children of Israel murmured against Moyses and Aaron, saying:

³Would God we had died in Ægypt: and in this vast wilderness would God we might die, and that our Lord would not bring us into this Land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led captive. Is it not better to return into Ægypt?

⁴And one said to another: Let us appoint a captain, & let us return into Ægypt.

⁵Which Moyses & Aaron hearing fell flat upon the ground before all the multitude of the children of Israel.

⁶But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone, who themselves also had viewed the land, rent their garments,

⁷and spake to all the multitude of the children of Israel: The Land, which we have circuited, is very good.

⁸If our Lord be propitious, he shall bring us into it, and deliver us a ground flowing with milk and honey.

⁹Be not rebellious against our Lord: neither fear ye the people of this land, for even as bread so we may devour them, all aid is gone from them: our Lord is with us, fear ye not.

¹⁰And when all the multitude cried, and would have stoned them, the glory of our Lord appeared over the roof of covenant in the sight of all the children of Israel.

¹¹And our Lord said to Moyses: How long will this people detract me? How long will they not believe me in all the signs that I have done before them?

¹²I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them: but thee I will make Prince over a great nation and a stronger than this is.

¹³And Moyses said to our Lord: That the Ægyptians, from the midst of whom thou hast brought forth this people,

¹⁴and the inhabitants of this Land, which have heard that thou Lord art among this people, and art seen face to face, and thy cloud protecteth them, and in a pillar of a cloud thou goest before them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night,

¹⁵may hear that thou hast killed so great a multitude as it were one man, and may say:

¹⁶He could not bring in the people into the Land, for which he had sworn, therefore did he kill them in the wilderness.

¹⁷Let therefore the strength of our Lord be magnified as thou hast sworn, saying:

¹⁸The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wicked deeds, and leaving no man innocent, which visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

¹⁹Forgive, I beseech thee, the sin of this thy people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, as thou hast been propitious to them since their going out of Ægypt unto this place.

²⁰And our Lord said: I have forgiven it according to thy word.

²¹Live I: and the whole earth shall be replenished with the glory of the Lord.

²²But yet all the men that have seen my majesty, and the signs that I have done in Ægypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now ten times, neither have obeyed my voice,

²³they shall not see the Land for the which I sware to their fathers, neither shall any of them that hath detracted me, behold it.

²⁴My servant Caleb, who being full of another spirit hath followed me, will I bring in unto this Land which he hath circuited: and his seed shall possess it.

²⁵Because the A malecite and the Cananeite dwell in the valleys. Tomorrow remove the camp, and return into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.

²⁶And our Lord spake to Moyses and Aaron, saying:

²⁷How long doth this ungracious multitude murmur against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel.

²⁸Say therefore to them: live I, sayeth our Lord: According as you have spoken I hearing it, so will I do to you.

²⁹In this wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that are numbered from twenty years & upward, and have murmured against me,

³⁰you shall not enter into the Land, over the which I have lifted up my hand to make you inhabit it, except Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun.

³¹But your little ones, of whom you said, that they should be a prey to the enemies, will I bring in: that they may see the Land that hath misliked you.

³²Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness.

³³Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert,

³⁴according to the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be reputed for a day. And forty years you shall receive your iniquities, and shall know my revenge:

³⁵for as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude, that hath risen together against me: in this wilderness shall it fail, and die,

³⁶Therefore all the men, whom Moyses had sent to view the Land, and which returning had made all the multitude to murmur against him, detracting from the Land that it was nought,

³⁷died and were strucken in the sight of our Lord.

³⁸But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone lived of all them, that had gone to view the Land.

³⁹And Moyses spake all these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned exceedingly.

⁴⁰And behold very early in the morning rising they went up to the top of the mountain, and said: We are ready to go up to the place, whereof our Lord hath spoken: for we have sinned.

⁴¹To whom Moyses said: Why transgress you the word of our Lord, which shall not succeed prosperously with you?

⁴²Go not up, for our Lord is not with you: lest you fall before your enemies.

⁴³The A malecite and the Chananite are before you, by whose sword you shall fall, for that you would not consent to our Lord, neither will our Lord be with you.

⁴⁴But they being blinded went up to the top of the mountain. But the ark of the testament of our Lord & Moyses departed not from the camp.

⁴⁵And the A malecite came down and the Cananeite, that dwelt in the mountain: and striking and hewing them, pursued them as far as Horma.