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Vulgate: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 14

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This is a passage from the Latin Vulgate Bible, specifically Numbers 14, recounting the Israelites' crisis of faith after scouts return from Canaan. The congregation weeps and rebels, calling for a return to Egypt rather than face the land's inhabitants in battle; Moses and Aaron prostrate themselves, while Caleb and Joshua urge the people forward, arguing God's protection makes conquest feasible. God responds in anger, threatening to destroy the people and start fresh with Moses, but Moses intercedes by appealing to God's own reputation among the nations and his proclaimed mercy. God relents from mass destruction but decrees that the entire generation of adults who doubted him — having tested him ten times — will die in the wilderness over forty years, one year for each day of the scouting expedition; only Caleb and Joshua are exempted. The passage closes with the Israelites' abrupt, unauthorized attempt to enter Canaan the next morning, which Moses forbids as doomed without divine backing; they attack anyway and are routed by the Amalekites and Canaanites. The text is notable for its tight theological argument: the punishment precisely mirrors the sin, and Moses' intercession frames God's mercy not as sentimentality but as a matter of divine honor before watching nations.

Vulgate: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 14

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