Numbers 14 · Parashat Shelach

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.

And all the children of Yisra᾽el murmured against Moshe and against Aharon: and the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Miżrayim! or would we had died in this wilderness!

And why has the Lord brought us to 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 to Miżrayim?

And they said to one another, Let us appoint a chief, and let us return to Miżrayim.

Then Moshe and Aharon fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Yisra᾽el.

And Yehoshua the son of Nun, and Kalev the son of Yefunne, of those who spied out the land, rent their clothes:

and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Yisra᾽el, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.

If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which flows with milk and honey.

Only rebel not against the Lord, nor fear 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 said to stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting before all the children of Yisra᾽el.

And the Lord said to Moshe, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be before they believe me, for all the signs which I have performed 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 Moshe said to the Lord, Then Miżrayim shall hear it, (for thou didst bring up this people in thy might from among them;)

and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: who have heard that thou Lord art among this people, that thou Lord art seen face to face, and that thy cloud stands over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of 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 swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.

And now, I pray thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,

The Lord is longsuffering, and great in love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, punishing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

Pardon, I pray thee, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy love, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Miżrayim until now.

And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word:

but truly, as I live, and all the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord:

surely, all those men who have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Miżrayim and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice:

surely, they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who provoked me see it:

but my servant Kalev, because he had another spirit with him, and followed me fully, him will I bring into the land into which he went; and his seed shall possess it,

(Now the ῾Amaleqi and the Kena῾ani dwelt in the valley.) Tomorrow turn, and get you into the wilderness by way of the Sea of Suf.

And the Lord spoke to Moshe and to Aharon, saying,

How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, who murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Yisra᾽el, which they murmur against me.

Say to them, As I live, says the Lord, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you:

your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me,

shall by no means come into the land, concerning which I swore to make you dwell there, except Kalev the son of Yefunne, and Yehoshua the son of Nun.

But your little ones, who, you said, should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.

But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your backslidings, until your carcasses be consumed in the wilderness.

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, namely, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.

I the Lord have said, I will surely do it to all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.

And the men, whom Moshe sent to spy out the land, who returned, and made all the congregation murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land;

now those men that brought up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord,

but Yehoshua the son of Nun, and Kalev the son of Yefunne, of the men who went to spy out the land; they lived.

And Moshe told these sayings to all the children of Yisra᾽el: and the people mourned greatly.

And they rose up early in the morning, and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, We are here, and will go up to the place which the Lord has promised: for we have sinned.

And Moshe said, Why now do you transgress the commandment of the Lord? it shall not prosper.

Go not up, for the Lord is not among you: so that you may not be smitten before your enemies.

For the ῾Amaleqi and the Kena῾ani are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword: because you have turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you.

But they presumed to go up to the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moshe, departed not out of the camp.

Then the ῾Amaleqi came down, and the Kena῾ani who dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, as far as Ḥorma.