34. For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’
35. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this wilderness; here they will die.”
36. So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—
37. these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord.
38. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.
39. When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly.