The People Complain

¹All night long the people cried out in distress.

²They complained against Moses and Aaron, and said, “It would have been better to die in Egypt or even here in the wilderness!

³Why is the Lord taking us into that land? We will be killed in battle, and our wives and children will be captured. Wouldn't it be better to go back to Egypt?”

⁴So they said to one another, “Let's choose a leader and go back to Egypt!”

⁵Then Moses and Aaron bowed to the ground in front of all the people.

⁶And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the spies, tore their clothes in sorrow

⁷and said to the people, “The land we explored is an excellent land.

⁸If the Lord is pleased with us, he will take us there and give us that rich and fertile land.

⁹Do not rebel against the Lord and don't be afraid of the people who live there. We will conquer them easily. The Lord is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don't be afraid.”

¹⁰The whole community was threatening to stone them to death, but suddenly the people saw the dazzling light of the Lord's presence appear over the Tent.

Moses Prays for the People

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, “How much longer will these people reject me? How much longer will they refuse to trust in me, even though I have performed so many miracles among them?

¹²I will send an epidemic and destroy them, but I will make you the father of a nation that is larger and more powerful than they are!”

¹³But Moses said to the Lord, “You brought these people out of Egypt by your power. When the Egyptians hear what you have done to your people,

¹⁴they will tell it to the people who live in this land. These people have already heard that you, Lord, are with us, that you appear in plain sight when your cloud stops over us, and that you go before us in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵Now if you kill all your people, the nations who have heard of your fame will say

¹⁶that you killed your people in the wilderness because you were not able to bring them into the land you promised to give them.

¹⁷So now, Lord, I pray, show us your power and do what you promised when you said,

¹⁸‘I, the Lord, am not easily angered, and I show great love and faithfulness and forgive sin and rebellion. Yet I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.’

¹⁹And now, Lord, according to the greatness of your unchanging love, forgive, I pray, the sin of these people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”

²⁰The Lord answered, “I will forgive them, as you have asked.

²¹But I promise that as surely as I live and as surely as my presence fills the earth,

²²none of these people will live to enter that land. They have seen the dazzling light of my presence and the miracles that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have tried my patience over and over again and have refused to obey me.

²³They will never enter the land which I promised to their ancestors. None of those who have rejected me will ever enter it.

²⁴But because my servant Caleb has a different attitude and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land which he explored, and his descendants will possess the land

²⁵in whose valleys the Amalekites and the Canaanites now live. Turn back tomorrow and go into the wilderness in the direction of the Gulf of Aqaba.”

The Lord Punishes the People for Complaining

²⁶The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁷“How much longer are these wicked people going to complain against me? I have heard enough of these complaints!

²⁸Now give them this answer: ‘I swear that as surely as I live, I will do to you just what you have asked. I, the Lord, have spoken.

²⁹You will die and your corpses will be scattered across this wilderness. Because you have complained against me, none of you over twenty years of age will enter that land.

³⁰I promised to let you live there, but not one of you will, except Caleb and Joshua.

³¹You said that your children would be captured, but I will bring them into the land that you rejected, and it will be their home.

³²You will die here in this wilderness.

³³Your children will wander in the wilderness for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last one of you dies.

³⁴You will suffer the consequences of your sin for forty years, one year for each of the forty days you spent exploring the land. You will know what it means to have me against you!

³⁵I swear that I will do this to you wicked people who have gathered together against me. Here in the wilderness every one of you will die. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”

^36-37The men Moses had sent to explore the land brought back a false report which caused the people to complain against the Lord. And so the Lord struck them with a disease, and they died.

³⁸Of the twelve spies only Joshua and Caleb survived.

The First Attempt to Invade the Land

³⁹When Moses told the Israelites what the Lord had said, they mourned bitterly.

⁴⁰Early the next morning they started out to invade the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go to the place which the Lord told us about. We admit that we have sinned.”

⁴¹But Moses said, “Then why are you disobeying the Lord now? You will not succeed!

⁴²Don't go. The Lord is not with you, and your enemies will defeat you.

⁴³When you face the Amalekites and the Canaanites, you will die in battle; the Lord will not be with you, because you have refused to follow him.”

⁴⁴Yet they still dared to go up into the hill country, even though neither the Lord's Covenant Box nor Moses left the camp.

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived there attacked and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hormah.

The One Place for Worship

¹“Here are the laws that you are to obey as long as you live in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Listen to them!

²In the land that you are taking, destroy all the places where the people worship their gods on high mountains, on hills, and under green trees.

³Tear down their altars and smash their sacred stone pillars to pieces. Burn their symbols of the goddess Asherah and chop down their idols, so that they will never again be worshiped at those places.

⁴“Do not worship the Lord your God in the way that these people worship their gods.

⁵Out of the territory of all your tribes the Lord will choose the one place where the people are to come into his presence and worship him.

⁶There you are to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, and the first-born of your cattle and sheep.

⁷There, in the presence of the Lord your God, who has blessed you, you and your families will eat and enjoy the good things that you have worked for.

⁸“When that time comes, you must not do as you have been doing. Until now you have all been worshiping as you please,

⁹because you have not yet entered the land that the Lord your God is giving you, where you can live in peace.

¹⁰When you cross the Jordan River, the Lord will let you occupy the land and live there. He will keep you safe from all your enemies, and you will live in peace.

¹¹The Lord will choose a single place where he is to be worshiped, and there you must bring to him everything that I have commanded: your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, and those special gifts that you have promised to the Lord.

¹²Be joyful there in his presence, together with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns; remember that the Levites will have no land of their own.

¹³You are not to offer your sacrifices wherever you choose;

¹⁴you must offer them only in the one place that the Lord will choose in the territory of one of your tribes. Only there are you to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and do all the other things that I have commanded you.

¹⁵“But you are free to kill and eat your animals wherever you live. You may eat as many as the Lord gives you. All of you, whether ritually clean or unclean, may eat them, just as you would eat the meat of deer or antelope.

¹⁶But you must not eat their blood; you must pour it out on the ground like water.

¹⁷Nothing that you offer to the Lord is to be eaten in the places where you live: neither the tithes of your grain, your wine, or your olive oil, nor the first-born of your cattle and sheep, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, or any other offerings.

¹⁸You and your children, together with your servants and the Levites who live in your towns, are to eat these offerings only in the presence of the Lord your God, in the one place of worship chosen by the Lord your God. And you are to be happy there over everything that you have done.

¹⁹Be sure, also, not to neglect the Levites, as long as you live in your land.

²⁰“When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised, you may eat meat whenever you want to.

²¹If the one place of worship is too far away, then, whenever you wish, you may kill any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord has given you, and you may eat the meat at home, as I have told you.

²²Anyone, ritually clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as he would eat the meat of deer or antelope.

²³Only do not eat meat with blood still in it, for the life is in the blood, and you must not eat the life with the meat.

²⁴Do not use the blood for food; instead, pour it out on the ground like water.

²⁵If you obey this command, the Lord will be pleased, and all will go well for you and your descendants.

²⁶Take to the one place of worship your offerings and the gifts that you have promised the Lord.

²⁷Offer there the sacrifices which are to be completely burned on the Lord's altar. Also offer those sacrifices in which you eat the meat and pour the blood out on the altar.

²⁸Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you, and all will go well for you and your descendants forever, because you will be doing what is right and what pleases the Lord your God.

Warning against Idolatry

²⁹“The Lord your God will destroy the nations as you invade their land, and you will occupy it and settle there.

³⁰After the Lord destroys those nations, make sure that you don't follow their religious practices, because that would be fatal. Don't try to find out how they worship their gods, so that you can worship in the same way.

³¹Do not worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the Lord hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.

³²“Do everything that I have commanded you; do not add anything to it or take anything from it.

A Song of Praise

¹Come, let us praise the Lord! Let us sing for joy to God, who protects us!

²Let us come before him with thanksgiving and sing joyful songs of praise.

³For the Lord is a mighty God, a mighty king over all the gods.

⁴He rules over the whole earth, from the deepest caves to the highest hills.

⁵He rules over the sea, which he made; the land also, which he himself formed.

⁶Come, let us bow down and worship him; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

⁷He is our God; we are the people he cares for, the flock for which he provides. Listen today to what he says:

⁸“Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah, as they were that day in the desert at Massah.

⁹There they put me to the test and tried me, although they had seen what I did for them.

¹⁰For forty years I was disgusted with those people. I said, ‘How disloyal they are! They refuse to obey my commands.’

¹¹I was angry and made a solemn promise: ‘You will never enter the land where I would have given you rest.’”