Your bodies will drop dead in this desert. All of you who are at least 20 years old, who were registered and listed, and who complained about me will die.
I will get rid of rebels and those who do wrong against me. I will bring you out of the land where you are living. You will never enter Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered River. During that time all our soldiers from that generation died, as the Lord had sworn they would.
For 40 years the Israelites wandered through the desert until all their soldiers who left Egypt died. They died because they disobeyed the Lord. The Lord swore that he would not let them see this land flowing with milk and honey which he had sworn to give our ancestors.
I want to remind you about what you already know: The Lord once saved his people from Egypt. But on another occasion he destroyed those who didn’t believe.