When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will You do about Your great name? ”
Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from Your great anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for Your people.
But I acted because of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations they were living among, in whose sight I had made Myself known to Israel by bringing them out of Egypt.
Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say: “Have pity on Your people, Lord, and do not make Your inheritance a disgrace, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God? ’ ”
Then my enemy will see, and she will be covered with shame, the one who said to me, “Where is the Lord your God? ” My eyes will look at her in triumph; at that time she will be trampled like mud in the streets.
Otherwise, those in the land you brought us from will say, ‘Because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’