God’s Forgiveness and Judgment

(Deuteronomy 1:34–40)

20 “I have pardoned them as you requested,” the LORD replied. 21 “Yet as surely as I live and as surely as the whole earth is filled with the glory of the LORD, 22 not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—23 not one will ever see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will see it.

24 But because My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he has entered, and his descendants will inherit it.

25 Now since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.[fn]”

26 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 27 “How long will this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints that the Israelites are making against Me. 28 So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say. 29 Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.

30 Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. 31 But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it. 32 As for you, however, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.

33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.

35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this entire wicked congregation, which has conspired against Me. They will meet their end in the wilderness, and there they will die.”