Psalms 78:32

³⁷But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they didn’t believe in him,

²²because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation.

³¹“He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”

¹All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. ²All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness! ³Why does the LORD bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into Egypt?” ⁴They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”

⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

⁶Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes. ⁷They spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. ⁸If the LORD delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us: a land which flows with milk and honey. ⁹Only don’t rebel against the LORD, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and the LORD is with us. Don’t fear them.”

¹⁰But all the congregation threatened to stone them with stones. The LORD’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the children of Israel.

¹¹The LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them? ¹²I will strike them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

¹³Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people in your might from among them. ¹⁴They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you LORD are among this people; for you LORD are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying, ¹⁶‘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.’ ¹⁷Now please let the power of the Lord^[+] be great, according as you have spoken, saying, ¹⁸‘The LORD is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’ ¹⁹Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

²⁰The LORD said, “I have pardoned according to your word; ²¹but in very deed—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the LORD’s glory— ²²because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; ²³surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it. ²⁴But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went. His offspring shall possess it. ²⁵Since the Amalekite and the Canaanite dwell in the valley, tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” ²⁶The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ²⁷“How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, which they complain against me. ²⁸Tell them, ‘As I live, says the LORD, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. ²⁹Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, ³⁰surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹But I will bring in your little ones that you said should be captured or killed, and they shall know the land which you have rejected. ³²But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness. ³⁴After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’ ³⁵I, the LORD, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”

³⁶The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land, ³⁷even those men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before the LORD. ³⁸But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who went to spy out the land.

³⁹Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. ⁴⁰They rose up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Behold, we are here, and will go up to the place which the LORD has promised; for we have sinned.”

⁴¹Moses said, “Why now do you disobey the commandment of the LORD, since it shall not prosper? ⁴²Don’t go up, for the LORD isn’t among you; that way you won’t be struck down before your enemies. ⁴³For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and you will fall by the sword because you turned back from following the LORD; therefore the LORD will not be with you.”

⁴⁴But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain. Nevertheless, the ark of the LORD’s covenant and Moses didn’t depart out of the camp. ⁴⁵Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah.

¹¹They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.

¹³“‘“But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn’t walk in my statutes and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keeps, he shall live in them. They greatly profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them.

¹Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took some men. ²They rose up before Moses, with some of the children of Israel, two hundred fifty princes of the congregation, called to the assembly, men of renown. ³They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much on yourself, since all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and the LORD is among them! Why do you lift yourselves up above the LORD’s assembly?”

⁴When Moses heard it, he fell on his face. ⁵He said to Korah and to all his company, “In the morning, the LORD will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him. Even him whom he shall choose, he will cause to come near to him. ⁶Do this: have Korah and all his company take censers, ⁷put fire in them, and put incense on them before the LORD tomorrow. It shall be that the man whom the LORD chooses, he shall be holy. You have gone too far, you sons of Levi!”

⁸Moses said to Korah, “Hear now, you sons of Levi! ⁹Is it a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do the service of the LORD’s tabernacle, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them; ¹⁰and that he has brought you near, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? Do you seek the priesthood also? ¹¹Therefore you and all your company have gathered together against the LORD! What is Aaron that you complain against him?”

¹²Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab; and they said, “We won’t come up! ¹³Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us? ¹⁴Moreover you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We won’t come up.”

¹⁵Moses was very angry, and said to the LORD, “Don’t respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, neither have I hurt one of them.”

¹⁶Moses said to Korah, “You and all your company go before the LORD, you, and they, and Aaron, tomorrow. ¹⁷Each man take his censer and put incense on it, and each man bring before the LORD his censer, two hundred fifty censers; you also, and Aaron, each with his censer.”

¹The Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the South, heard that Israel came by the way of Atharim. He fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. ²Israel vowed a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.” ³The LORD listened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. The name of the place was called Hormah.

^4[+] They traveled from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. The soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey. ⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, there is no water, and our soul loathes this disgusting food!”

⁶The LORD sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.

¹Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab; ²for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³Israel joined himself to Baal Peor, and the LORD’s anger burned against Israel. ⁴The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to the LORD before the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.”

⁵Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Everyone kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor.”

⁶Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting. ⁷When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the middle of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand. ⁸He went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. ⁹Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ¹¹“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy. ¹²Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace. ¹³It shall be to him, and to his offspring after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’”

¹⁴Now the name of the man of Israel that was slain, who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a fathers’ house among the Simeonites. ¹⁵The name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head of the people of a fathers’ house in Midian.

¹⁶The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁷“Harass the Midianites, and strike them; ¹⁸for they harassed you with their wiles, wherein they have deceived you in the matter of Peor, and in the incident regarding Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor.”