AND all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the
people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against
Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them,
Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had
died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto
this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should
be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they
said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into
Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly
of the congregation of the children of Israel.
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were
of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: and they spake unto
all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we
passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the LORD
delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a
land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the
LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for
us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear
them not. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And
the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation
before all the children of Israel.
[Sidenote: Numbers 14]
And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me?
and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which
I have shewed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and
disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier
than they.
And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for
thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) and they
will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that
thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face,
and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them,
by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.
Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations
which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the
LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware
unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now,
I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou
hast spoken, saying, The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy,
forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the
guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity
of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou
hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
[Sidenote: Numbers 14]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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