Study Desk

So Moses said to the LORD, "Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have put the burden of all this people on me?

"Was it I who conceived all this people? Or did I give birth to them, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your arms, as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers'?

"Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, 'Give us meat so that we may eat!'

"I am not able to carry all this people by myself, because it is too burdensome for me.

"So if You are going to deal with me this way, please kill me now, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my misery."

The LORD therefore said to Moses, "Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their stand there with you.

And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people be disrespectful to Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst?

"Certainly all the people who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice,

shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who were disrespectful to Me see it.

"But as for My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.

"How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are voicing against Me.

your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.

'I, the LORD, have spoken, I certainly will do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. They shall be worn out in this wilderness, and there they shall die.'"

Then Moses said, "By this you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these deeds; for it is not my doing.

"If these men die the death of all mankind, or if they suffer the fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me.

But the LORD said to Moses, "Put the staff of Aaron back in front of the testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebels, so that you may put an end to their grumblings against Me and they do not die."

"This shall be yours from the most holy gifts reserved from the fire; every offering of theirs, namely every grain offering, every sin offering, and every guilt offering, with which they shall make restitution to Me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons.

But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Since you did not trust in Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, for that reason you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them."

Again, the sons of Israel said to him, "We will go up by the road, and if I and my livestock do drink any of your water, then I will pay its price. Let me only pass through on my feet, nothing more."

So Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, "If You will indeed hand over this people to me, then I will utterly destroy their cities."