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"It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.'
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And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying,
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"The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.'
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Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now."
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Then the Lord said, "I do forgive, just as you have asked;
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nevertheless—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord—
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none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice,
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shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it.
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But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.
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Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea."
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And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying:
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How long shall this wicked congregation complain against me? I have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they complain against me.
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Say to them, "As I live," says the Lord, "I will do to you the very things I heard you say:
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your dead bodies shall fall in this very wilderness; and of all your number, included in the census, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me,
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not one of you shall come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
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But your little ones, who you said would become booty, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have despised.
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But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
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And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.
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According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure."
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I the Lord have spoken; surely I will do thus to all this wicked congregation gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.
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And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report about the land—
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the men who brought an unfavorable report about the land died by a plague before the Lord.
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But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh alone remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land.
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When Moses told these words to all the Israelites, the people mourned greatly.
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They rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, "Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned."
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But Moses said, "Why do you continue to transgress the command of the Lord? That will not succeed.
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Do not go up, for the Lord is not with you; do not let yourselves be struck down before your enemies.
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For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will confront you there, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you."
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But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, even though the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, had not left the camp.
