Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 241
14:30–15:3
N u mbers
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included in the registration will die. You will not enter and occupy the land
I swore to give you. The only exceptions will be Caleb son of Jephunneh
and Joshua son of Nun.
“‘You said your children would be carried off as plunder. Well, I will
bring them safely into the land, and they will enjoy what you have despised. But as for you, you will drop dead in this wilderness. And your children will be like shepherds, wandering in the wilderness for forty years. In
this way, they will pay for your faithlessness, until the last of you lies dead
in the wilderness.
“‘Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander
in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins. Then you will discover what it is like to have me
for an enemy.’ I, the Lord, have spoken! I will certainly do these things to
every member of the community who has conspired against me. They will
be destroyed here in this wilderness, and here they will die!”
The ten men Moses had sent to explore the l and—the ones who incited
rebellion against the Lord with their bad r eport—were struck dead with
a plague before the Lord. Of the twelve who had explored the land, only
Joshua and Caleb remained alive.
When Moses reported the Lord’s words to all the Israelites, the people
were filled with grief. Then they got up early the next morning and went to
the top of the range of hills. “Let’s go,” they said. “We realize that we have
sinned, but now we are ready to enter the land the Lord has promised us.”
But Moses said, “Why are you now disobeying the Lord’s orders to
return to the wilderness? It won’t work. Do not go up into the land now.
You will only be crushed by your enemies because the Lord is not with
you. When you face the Amalekites and Canaanites in battle, you will be
slaughtered. The Lord will abandon you because you have abandoned
the Lord.”
But the people defiantly pushed ahead toward the hill country, even
though neither Moses nor the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant left the camp.
Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in those hills came
down and attacked them and chased them back as far as Hormah.
Then the Lord told Moses, “Give the following instructions to the people
of Israel.
“When you finally settle in the land I am giving you, you will offer special gifts as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. These gifts may take the form
of a burnt offering, a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, a voluntary offering, or an
offering at any of your annual festivals, and they may be taken from your
