Numbers 14

⁴⁵And you returned and wept before the Lord, but He would not listen to your voice or give ear to you.

¹Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

²And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down.

²⁴So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

⁴¹The next day the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the Lord’s people!”

³But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

¹⁰And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.

²⁷“How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.

²⁸So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.

²And there in the desert the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

³“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”

³¹But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.

³²As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.

³“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the Lord.

⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

³⁹But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

¹⁶But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments.

¹⁷They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.

³²Remember Lot’s wife!

¹⁶But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for the Lord has said, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

⁶⁸The Lord will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

⁴When Moses heard this, he fell facedown.

²²But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will You be angry with the whole congregation?”

⁴⁵“Get away from this congregation so that I may consume them in an instant.” And Moses and Aaron fell facedown.

⁸While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord God, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?”

²⁴Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.

¹⁴“Neither,” He replied. “I have now come as Commander of the Lord’s army.” Then Joshua fell facedown in reverence and asked Him, “What does my Lord have to say to His servant?”

³⁰Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³⁰Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it!”

⁶from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh;

³⁸Of those men who had gone to spy out the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive.

⁸from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;

³⁴Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

²⁷And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

²⁵They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us word: “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

¹⁰And when the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give you—a land with great and splendid cities that you did not build,

¹¹with houses full of every good thing with which you did not fill them, with wells that you did not dig, and with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied,

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

²⁰He brought me out into the open; He rescued me because He delighted in me.

⁴No longer will you be called Forsaken, nor your land named Desolate; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be His bride.

²⁷And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

¹⁵Yet the Lord has set His affection on your fathers and loved them. And He has chosen you, their descendants after them, above all the peoples, even to this day.

¹⁰He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.

¹¹The Lord is pleased with those who fear Him, who hope in His loving devotion.

³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

¹⁸But do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt:

⁶Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid or terrified of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”

³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

⁸The Lord Himself goes before you; He will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”

¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You fed him to the creatures of the desert.

⁸God brought him out of Egypt with strength like a wild ox, to devour hostile nations and crush their bones, to pierce them with arrows.

⁴Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with these people? A little more and they will stone me!”

⁶And David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of every man grieved for his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.

²³Moses and Aaron then entered the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.

¹⁰And as Aaron was speaking to the whole congregation of Israel, they looked toward the desert, and there in a cloud the glory of the Lord appeared.

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

⁴²But when the congregation gathered against them, Moses and Aaron turned toward the Tent of Meeting, and suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

³²In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

²⁴They despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise.

²²because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

⁴¹Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

²²You continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.

²³And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh-barnea, He said, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You neither believed Him nor obeyed Him.

⁸do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness,

¹⁰Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

⁴⁶Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has begun.”

⁴⁷So Aaron took the censer as Moses had ordered and ran into the midst of the assembly. And seeing that the plague had begun among the people, he offered the incense and made atonement for the people.

⁹but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

¹Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

¹²“Go and tell David that this is what the Lord says: ‘I am offering you three options. Choose one of them, and I will carry it out against you.’”

¹³So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three days of plague upon your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”

³“The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they answered. “Please let us go on a three-day journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God, or He may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”

²³So He said He would destroy them—had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.

¹¹But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God, saying, “O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

¹²Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people.

⁹But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the eyes of the nations among whom they were living, in whose sight I had revealed Myself to Israel by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

²⁷if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the Lord who did all this.’”

²⁶And I prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

²⁷Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people and the wickedness of their sin.

¹⁴But I acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

¹⁴The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the dwellers of Philistia.

²¹And the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.

¹²You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel.

⁴The Lord spoke with you face to face out of the fire on the mountain.

¹¹Thus the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun would not leave the tent.

¹⁸No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

¹⁶“Surely I will be with you,” the Lord replied, “and you will strike down all the Midianites as one man.”

²⁸Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’

⁹When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will You do for Your great name?”

⁷“O, Lord God,” Joshua said, “why did You ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be destroyed? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

²⁶I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,

²⁷if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the Lord who did all this.’”

⁸When the crowds saw this, they were filled with awe and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

⁶But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” Then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”

⁸As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the Lord, with justice and courage, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

⁶Then the Lord passed in front of Moses and called out: “The Lord, the Lord God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

⁷maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

⁸The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion.

⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

²So he prayed to the Lord, saying, “O Lord, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

²The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and full of wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

³The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.

⁸The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.

⁹“O Lord,” he said, “if I have indeed found favor in Your sight, my Lord, please go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our iniquity and sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”

⁴⁵And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.

³⁸And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.

³²Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.”

²So he prayed to the Lord, saying, “O Lord, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.

²Wash me clean of my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

²³So He said He would destroy them—had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.

¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

¹⁴For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁹And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen.

³And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.”

¹⁸Lift up your eyes and look around. They all gather together; they come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “you will wear them all as jewelry and put them on like a bride.

⁴⁰For I lift up My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,

¹⁰Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed?

⁷And although he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, God has not allowed him to harm me.

³Ten times now you have reproached me; you shamelessly mistreat me.

¹Now when the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!”

³¹and in the wilderness, where the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.”

³²But in spite of all this, you did not trust the Lord your God,

²⁶So He raised His hand and swore to cast them down in the wilderness,

¹¹‘Because they did not follow Me wholeheartedly, not one of the men twenty years of age or older who came out of Egypt will see the land that I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—

⁶⁴Among all these, however, there was not one who had been numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.

¹⁵Moreover, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands—

³⁵“Not one of the men of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers,

³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed?

³Now we who have believed enter that rest. As for the others, it is just as God has said: “So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’” And yet His works have been finished since the foundation of the world.

⁶Then the sons of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh-barnea about you and me.

⁷I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back to him an honest report.

⁶Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes

⁷and said to the whole congregation of Israel, “The land we passed through and explored is an exceedingly good land.

¹¹‘Because they did not follow Me wholeheartedly, not one of the men twenty years of age or older who came out of Egypt will see the land that I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—

¹²not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun—because they did follow the Lord wholeheartedly.’

³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

²³When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts.

⁶And do this not only to please them while they are watching, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.

⁴⁰But you are to turn back and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”

²⁹The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”

⁴So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”

¹¹But My people would not listen to Me, and Israel would not obey Me.

¹²So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

³¹So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹⁰And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.

²⁸Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep My commandments and instructions?

¹⁹“O unbelieving generation!” Jesus replied. “How long must I remain with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to Me.”

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?

²¹“Yet as surely as I live and as surely as the whole earth is filled with the glory of the Lord,

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

²All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!

³⁵“Not one of the men of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers,

²³not one will ever see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will see it.

⁶⁴Among all these, however, there was not one who had been numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

⁴⁵So all the Israelites twenty years of age or older who could serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families.

⁶⁴Among all these, however, there was not one who had been numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness.

³²As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.

³³Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

⁵Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe.

³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

³⁷The Lord was also angry with me on your account, and He said, “Not even you shall enter the land.

³⁸Of those men who had gone to spy out the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

²²But Abram replied to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the Lord God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth,

¹²not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun—because they did follow the Lord wholeheartedly.’

³⁹And the little ones you said would become captives—your children who on that day did not know good from evil—will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it.

²⁴They despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise.

⁶⁴Among all these, however, there was not one who had been numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.

⁶the Hezronite clan from Hezron, and the Carmite clan from Carmi.

³Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

⁴¹‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’”

⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness.

²⁹Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

¹³The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation who had done evil in His sight was gone.

³⁵Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and have cast Me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and prostitution.’”

⁴⁰He pours out contempt on the nobles and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.

¹⁴The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years, until that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.

³⁸At the Lord’s command, Aaron the priest climbed Mount Hor and died there on the first day of the fifth month, in the fortieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt.

³¹The husband will be free from guilt, but the woman shall bear her iniquity.”

⁶When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year.

²⁵After forty days the men returned from spying out the land,

⁹And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom,

¹⁰and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it.

²⁴Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

²¹So the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, until seventy years were completed, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah.

¹⁰For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”

¹⁹God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?

⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

¹⁹So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.

¹¹Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

²⁷“How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me.

²⁸So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.

³¹But the men who had gone up with him replied, “We cannot go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are!”

³²So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had spied out: “The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature.

⁴and these were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;

⁵from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori;

¹⁰And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.

⁴⁹But those who died from the plague numbered 14,700, in addition to those who had died on account of Korah.

¹²I will strike them with a plague and destroy them—and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

³²this is what the Lord says: ‘I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good that I will bring to My people, declares the Lord, for he has preached rebellion against the Lord.’”

⁵Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe.

⁶Then the sons of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh-barnea about you and me.

⁷I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back to him an honest report.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

⁴When the people heard this bad news, they went into mourning, and no one put on any of his jewelry.

¹⁷For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He could find no ground for repentance, though he sought the blessing with tears.

³A man’s own folly subverts his way, yet his heart rages against the Lord.

¹²But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

¹⁶O Lord, they sought You in their distress; when You disciplined them, they poured out a quiet prayer.

⁴¹“We have sinned against the Lord,” you replied. “We will go up and fight, as the Lord our God has commanded us.” Then each of you put on his weapons of war, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

²¹Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

²²Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’

³This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and afterward they join the dead.

²⁵After the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’

¹¹The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.

¹²By pouring this perfume on Me, she has prepared My body for burial.

²⁰Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood up before the people and said to them, “This is what God says: ‘Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He has forsaken you.’”

²⁵Now since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”

⁹By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.

³⁷Moreover, you will leave that place with your hands on your head, for the Lord has rejected those you trust; you will not prosper by their help.”

⁵He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will stay until I attend to him, declares the Lord. If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.’”

⁴²But the Lord said to me, “Tell them not to go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from defeat by your enemies.”

¹²This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they themselves have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you whatever is devoted to destruction.

⁸O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has turned its back and run from its enemies?

¹For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.

²With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.

²So he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.

²⁹The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”

²⁵Now since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”

²⁰Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.

¹²Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them!

⁹As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

⁴³So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the command of the Lord and presumptuously went up into the hill country.

³When the troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why has the Lord brought defeat on us before the Philistines today? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh, so that it may go with us to save us from the hand of our enemies.”

⁴So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

³³So they set out on a three-day journey from the mountain of the Lord, with the ark of the covenant of the Lord traveling ahead of them for those three days to seek a resting place for them.

⁶And Moses sent the thousand from each tribe into battle, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest, who took with him the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.

³⁰But the person who sins defiantly, whether a native or foreigner, blasphemes the Lord. That person shall be cut off from among his people.

³And the Lord heard Israel’s plea and delivered up the Canaanites. Israel devoted them and their cities to destruction; so they named the place Hormah.

¹⁷Then the men of Judah went with their brothers the Simeonites, attacked the Canaanites living in Zephath, and devoted the city to destruction. So it was called Hormah.

⁴⁴Then the Amorites who lived in the hills came out against you and chased you like a swarm of bees. They routed you from Seir all the way to Hormah.

⁴³For there the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the Lord, He will not be with you.”

⁵And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of them, chasing them from the gate as far as the quarries and striking them down on the slopes. So the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

³⁰How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?