26. You were not willing to go up, however, but instead rebelled against the Lord your God.
27. You complained among yourselves privately and said, “Because the Lord hates us he brought us from Egypt to deliver us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us!
28. What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage by describing people who are more numerous and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven itself! Moreover, they said they saw Anakites there.”
29. So I responded to you, “Do not be terrified of them!
30. The Lord your God is about to go ahead of you; he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt
31. and in the desert, where you saw him carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place.”
32. However, through all this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God,
33. the one who was constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp. He appeared by fire at night and cloud by day, to show you the way you ought to go.
34. When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow:
35. “Not a single person of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors!
36. The exception is Caleb son of Jephunneh; he will see it and I will give him and his descendants the territory on which he has walked, because he has wholeheartedly followed me.”
37. As for me, the Lord was also angry with me on your account. He said, “You also will not be able to go there.
38. However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land.
39. Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.
40. But as for you, turn back and head for the desert by the way to the Red Sea.”
41. Then you responded to me and admitted, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will now go up and fight as the Lord our God has told us to do.” So you each put on your battle gear and prepared to go up to the hill country.