¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt?^(A) How long will they refuse to believe in me,^(B) in spite of all the signs^(C) I have performed among them? ¹² I will strike them down with a plague^(D) and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation^(E) greater and stronger than they.”^(F)

¹³ Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.^{(G) 14} And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard^(H) that you, Lord, are with these people^(I) and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face,^(J) that your cloud stays over them,^(K) and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.^{(L) 15} If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath,^(M) so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^(N)

¹⁷ “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ¹⁸ ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.^(O) Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’^{(P) 19} In accordance with your great love, forgive^(Q) the sin of these people,^(R) just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”^(S)

²⁰ The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them,^(T) as you asked. ²¹ Nevertheless, as surely as I live^(U) and as surely as the glory of the Lord^(V) fills the whole earth,^{(W) 22} not one of those who saw my glory and the signs^(X) I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times^(Y)— ²³ not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath^(Z) to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt^(AA) will ever see it.^{(AB) 24} But because my servant Caleb^(AC) has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly,^(AD) I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.^{(AE) 25} Since the Amalekites^(AF) and the Canaanites^(AG) are living in the valleys, turn^(AH) back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.^[a](AI)”