Deserters Are Defeated In The Desert

So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel

about the land they had scouted,…

At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries,

and even in the night the people wailed.”

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:

‘How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me?

…Tell them: By my life, says the LORD,

I will do to you just what I have heard you say.

Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall.

Forty days you spent in scouting the land;

forty years shall you suffer for your crimes:

one year for each day.

Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me.'”