34. Corresponding to the number of days you spent reconnoitering the land—forty days—you shall bear your punishment one year for each day: forty years. Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me.
35. I, the Lord, have spoken; and I will surely do this to this entire wicked community that conspired against me: here in the wilderness they shall come to their end and there they will die.”
36. And the men whom Moses had sent to reconnoiter the land and who on returning had set the whole community grumbling against him by spreading discouraging reports about the land—
37. these men who had spread discouraging reports about the land were struck down by the Lord and died.
38. Only Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, survived of all the men who had gone to reconnoiter the land.
39. When Moses repeated these words to all the Israelites, the people mourned greatly.
40. Early the next morning they started up high into the hill country, saying, “Here we are, ready to go up to the place that the Lord spoke of: for we did wrong.”
41. But Moses said, “Why are you now transgressing the Lord’s order? This cannot succeed.
42. Do not go up, because the Lord is not in your midst; do not allow yourself to be struck down by your enemies.
43. For there the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you, and you will fall by the sword. You have turned back from following the Lord; therefore the Lord will not be with you.”