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Hastily the Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the LORD, your God, and against you. But now, do forgive me my sin once more, and pray the LORD, your God, to take at least this deadly pest from me." When Moses left the presence of Pharaoh, he prayed to the LORD, and the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which took up the locusts and hurled them into the Red Sea.
While they were in Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on the pretext of the marriage he had contracted with a Cushite woman. They complained, "Is it through Moses alone that the LORD speaks? Does he not speak through us also?" And the LORD heard this. Now, Moses himself was by far the meekest man on the face of the earth. So at once the LORD said to Moses and Aaron and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the meeting tent." And the three of them went. Then the LORD came down in the column of cloud, and standing at the entrance of the tent, called Aaron and Miriam. When both come forward, he said, "Now listen to the words of the LORD:Should there be a prophet among you,
in visions will I reveal myself to him,
in dreams will I speak to him;
Not so with my servant Moses!
Throughout my house he bears my trust:
face to face I speak to him,
plainly and not in riddles.The presence of the LORD he beholds. Why, then, did you not fear to speak against my servant Moses?"
So angry was the LORD against them that when he departed, and the cloud withdrew from the tent, there was Miriam, a snow-white leper! When Aaron turned and saw her a leper, "Ah, my lord!" he said to Moses, "please do not charge us with the sin that we have foolishly committed! Let her not thus be like the stillborn babe that comes forth from its mother's womb with its flesh half consumed." Then Moses cried to the LORD, "Please not this! Pray, heal her!"
At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries, and even in the night the people wailed. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, the whole community saying to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that here in the desert we were dead! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword? Our wives and little ones will be taken as booty. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and go back to Egypt."But Moses and Aaron fell prostrate before the whole assembled community of the Israelites; while Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, who had been in the party that scouted the land, tore their garments and said to the whole community of the Israelites, "The country which we went through and explored is a fine, rich land. If the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us in and give us that land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But do not rebel against the LORD! You need not be afraid of the people of that land; they are but food for us! Their defense has left them, but the LORD is with us. Therefore, do not be afraid of them." In answer, the whole community threatened to stone them.
But then the glory of the LORD appeared at the meeting tent to all the Israelites. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them with pestilence and wipe them out. Then I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they."
But Moses said to the LORD: "Are the Egyptians to hear of this? For by your power you brought out this people from among them. And are they to tell of it to the inhabitants of this land? It has been heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people; you, LORD, who plainly reveal yourself! Your cloud stands over them, and you go before them by day in a column of cloud and by night in a column of fire. If now you slay this whole people, the nations who have heard such reports of you will say, 'The LORD was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them; that is why he slaughtered them in the desert.' Now then, let the power of my Lord be displayed in its greatness, even as you have said, 'The LORD is slow to anger and rich in kindness, forgiving wickedness and crime; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness.' Pardon, then, the wickedness of this people in keeping with your great kindness, even as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now."
The LORD answered: "I pardon them as you have asked. Yet, by my life and the LORD'S glory that fills the whole earth, of all the men who have seen my glory and the signs I worked in Egypt and in the desert, and who nevertheless have put me to the test ten times already and have failed to heed my voice, not one shall see the land which I promised on oath to their fathers. None of these who have spurned me shall see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me unreservedly, I will bring him into the land where he has just been, and his descendants shall possess it. But now, since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn away tomorrow and set out in the desert on the Red Sea road." The LORD also said to Moses and Aaron: "How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the Israelites 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. Of all your men of twenty years or more, registered in the census, who grumbled against me, not one shall enter the land where I solemnly swore to settle you, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun. Your little ones, however, who you said would be taken as booty, I will bring in, and they shall appreciate the land you spurned. But as for you, your bodies shall fall here in the desert, here where your children must wander for forty years, suffering for your faithlessness, till the last of you lies dead in the desert. 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. I, the LORD, have sworn to do this to all this wicked community that conspired against me: here in the desert they shall die to the last man." And so it happened to 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; these men who had given out the bad report about the land were struck down by the LORD and died. Of all the men who had gone to reconnoiter the land, only Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, survived. When Moses repeated these words to all the Israelites, the people felt great remorse.
"When through inadvertence you fail to carry out any of these commandments which the LORD gives to Moses, and through Moses to you, from the time the LORD first issues the commandment down through your generations: if the community itself unwittingly becomes guilty of the fault of inadvertence, the whole community shall offer the holocaust of one young bull as a sweet-smelling oblation pleasing to the LORD, along with its prescribed cereal offering and libation, as well as one he-goat as a sin offering. Then the priest shall make atonement for the whole Israelite community; thus they will be forgiven the inadvertence for which they have brought their holocaust as an oblation to the LORD. Not only the whole Israelite community, but also the aliens residing among you, shall be forgiven, since the fault of inadvertence affects all the people. "However, if it is an individual who sins inadvertently, he shall bring a yearling she-goat as a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement before the LORD for him who sinned inadvertently; when atonement has been made for him, he will be forgiven. You shall have but one law for him who sins inadvertently, whether he be a native Israelite or an alien residing with you. "But anyone who sins defiantly, whether he be a native or an alien, insults the LORD, and shall be cut off from among his people. Since he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, he must be cut off. He has only himself to blame." While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was discovered gathering wood on the sabbath day. Those who caught him at it brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly. But they kept him in custody, for there was no clear decision as to what should be done with him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "This man shall be put to death; let the whole community stone him outside the camp." So the whole community led him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD had commanded Moses.The God of Moses is a loving, forgiving God.
If your enemy be hungry, give him food to eat, if he be thirsty, give him drink;...
Say not, "As he did to me, so will I do to him; I will repay the man according to his deeds."
"When you notice the ass of one who hates you lying prostrate under its burden, by no means desert him; help him, rather, to raise it up."
How great the mercy of the LORD, his forgiveness of those who return to him!
Perhaps, when the house of Judah hears all the evil I have in mind to do to them, they will turn back each from his evil way, so that I may forgive their wickedness and their sin.
If you, LORD, mark our sins, Lord, who can stand? But with you is forgiveness and so you are revered.
Study the generations long past and understand; has anyone hoped in the LORD and been disappointed? Has anyone persevered in his fear and been forsaken? has anyone called upon him and been rebuffed? Compassionate and merciful is the LORD; he forgives sins, he saves in time of trouble.
