Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 240
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IMMERSE
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BEGINNINGS
14:11-29
the Tabernacle. And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people
treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the
miraculous signs I have done among them? I will disown them and destroy them with a plague. Then I will make you into a nation greater and
mightier than they are!”
But Moses objected. “What will the Egyptians think when they hear
about it?” he asked the Lord. “They know full well the power you displayed in rescuing your people from Egypt. Now if you destroy them, the
Egyptians will send a report to the inhabitants of this land, who have already heard that you live among your people. They know, Lord, that you
have appeared to your people face to face and that your pillar of cloud hovers over them. They know that you go before them in the pillar of cloud
by day and the pillar of fire by night. Now if you slaughter all these people
with a single blow, the nations that have heard of your fame will say, ‘The
Lord was not able to bring them into the land he swore to give them, so
he killed them in the wilderness.’
“Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed.
For you said, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love,
forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty.
He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is
affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.’ In keeping
with your magnificent, unfailing love, please pardon the sins of this people,
just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”
Then the Lord said, “I will pardon them as you have requested. But as
surely as I live, and as surely as the earth is filled with the Lord’s glory,
not one of these people will ever enter that land. They have all seen my
glorious presence and the miraculous signs I performed both in Egypt and
in the wilderness, but again and again they have tested me by refusing to
listen to my voice. They will never even see the land I swore to give their
ancestors. None of those who have treated me with contempt will ever see
it. But my servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He
has remained loyal to me, so I will bring him into the land he explored.
His descendants will possess their full share of that land. Now turn around,
and don’t go on toward the land where the Amalekites and Canaanites
live. Tomorrow you must set out for the wilderness in the direction of the
Red Sea.”
Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “How long must I put up with
this wicked community and its complaints about me? Yes, I have heard the
complaints the Israelites are making against me. Now tell them this: ‘As
surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard
you say. You will all drop dead in this wilderness! Because you complained
against me, every one of you who is twenty years old or older and was
