Bible in a Year.

On the sixty-third day, we witness one of the greatest crises of the pilgrimage. In Numbers 14, the people rebel against God and refuse to enter Canaan, resulting in forty years of wandering. Deuteronomy 12 emphasizes the centralization of worship in one place and the purity of worship. Psalm 95 invites us to praise the Lord and warns against hardening our hearts, recalling the episode at Meribah.

1. Wherefore the whole multitude crying wept that night.

2. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying:

3. Would God that we had died in Egypt and would God we may die in this vast wilderness, and that the Lord may not bring us into this land, lest we fall by the sword, and our wives and children be led away captives. Is it not better to return into Egypt?

4. And they said one to another: Let us appoint a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

5. And when Moses and Aaron heard this, they fell down flat upon the ground before the multitude of the children of Israel.

6. But Josue the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephone, who themselves also had viewed the land, rent their garments,

7. And said to all the multitude of the children of Israel: The land which we have gone round is very good:

8. If the Lord be favourable, he will bring us into it, and give us a land flowing with milk and honey.

9. Be not rebellious against the Lord: and fear ye not the people of this land, for we are able to eat them up as bread. All aid is gone from them: the Lord is with us, fear ye not.

10. And when all the multitude cried out, and would have stoned them, the glory of the Lord appeared over the tabernacle of the covenant to all the children of Israel.

11. And the Lord said to Moses: How long will this people detract me? how long will they not believe me for all the signs that I have wrought before them?

12. I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them: but thee I will make a ruler over a great nation, and a mightier than this is.

13. And Moses said to the Lord: That the Egyptians, from the midst of whom thou hast brought forth this people,

14. And the inhabitants of this land, (who have heard that thou, O Lord, art among this people, and art seen face to face, and thy cloud protecteth them, and thou goest before them in a pillar of a cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night,)

15. May hear that thou hast killed so great a multitude as it were one man and may say:

16. He could not bring the people into the land for which he had sworn, therefore did he kill them in the wilderness.

17. Let their the strength of the Lord be magnified, as thou hast sworn, saying:

18. The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness, and leaving no man clear, who visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

19. Forgive, I beseech thee, the sins of this people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, as thou hast been merciful to them from their going out of Egypt unto this place.

20. And the Lord said: I have forgiven according to thy word.

21. As I live: and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

22. But yet all the men that have seen my majesty, and the signs that I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now ten times, and have not obeyed my voice,

23. Shall not see the land for which I aware to their fathers, neither shall any one of them that hath detracted me behold it.

24. My servant Caleb, who being full of another spirit hath followed me, I will bring into this land which he hath gone round: and his seed shall possess it.

25. For the Amalecite and the Chanaanite dwell in the valleys. To morrow remove the camp, and return into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.

26. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying:

27. How long doth this wicked multitude murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel.

28. Say therefore to them: As I live, saith the Lord: According as you have spoken in my hearing, so will I do to you.

29. fin the wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against me,

30. Shall not enter into the land, over which I lifted up my bend to make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun.

31. But your children, of whom you said, that they should be a prey to the enemies, will I bring in: that they may see the land which you have despised.

32. Your carcasses shall lie in the wilderness.

33. Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed ill the desert,

34. According to the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: year shall be counted for a day. And forty years you shall receive your iniquities, and shall know my revenge:

35. For as I have spoken, so will I do to all this wicked multitude, that hath risen up together against me: in this wilderness shall it faint away and die.

36. Therefore all the men, whom Moses had sent to view the land, and who at their return had made the whole multitude to murmur against him, speaking ill of the land that it was naught,

37. Died and were struck in the sight of the Lord.

38. But Josue .the son of Nun. and Caleb the son of Jephone lived, of all them that had gone to view the land.

39. And Moses spoke all these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned exceedingly.

40. And behold rising up very early in the morning, they went up to the top of the mountain, and said: We are ready to go up to the place, of which the Lord hath spoken: for we have sinned.

41. And Moses said to them: Why transgress you the word of the Lord, which shall not succeed prosperously with you?

42. Go not up, for the Lord is not with you: lest you fall before your enemies.

43. The Amalecite and the Chanaanite are before you, and by their sword you shall fall, because you would not consent to the Lord, neither will the Lord be with you.

44. But they being blinded went up to the top of the mountain. But the ark of the testament of the Lord and Moses departed not from the camp.

45. And the Amalecite came down, and the Chanaanite that dwelt in the mountain: and smiting and slaying them pursued them as far as Horma.

1. These are the precepts and judgments, that you must do in the land, which the Lord the God of thy fathers will give thee, to possess it all the days that thou shalt walk upon the earth.

2. Destroy all the places in which the nations, that you shall possess, worshipped their gods upon high mountains, and hills, and under every shady tree:

3. Overthrow their altars, and break down their statues, burn their groves with fire, and break their idols in pieces: destroy their names out of those places.

4. You shall not do so to the Lord your God:

5. But you shall come to the place, which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, and to dwell in it:

6. And you shall offer in that place your holocausts and victims, the tithes and firstfruits of your hands and your vows and gifts, the firstborn of your herds and your sheep.

7. And you shall eat there in the sight of the Lord your God: and you shall rejoice in all things, whereunto you shall put your hand, you and your houses wherein the Lord your God hath blessed you.

8. You shall not do there the things we do here this day, every man that which seemeth good to himself.

9. For until this present time you are not come to refit, and to the possession, which the Lord your God will give you.

10. You shall pass over the Jordan, and shall dwell in the land which the Lord your God will give you, that you may have rest from all enemies round about: and may dwell without any fear,

11. In the place, which the Lord your God shall choose, that his name may be therein. Thither shall you bring all the things that I command you, holocausts, and victims, and tithes, and the firstfruits of your hands: and whatsoever is the choicest in the gifts which you shall vow to the Lord.

12. There shall you feast before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and maid- servants, and the Levite that dwelleth in your cities. For he hath no other part and possession among you.

13. Beware lest thou offer thy holocausts in every place that thou shalt see:

14. But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes shalt thou offer sacrifices. and shalt do all that I command thee.

15. But if thou desirest to eat, and the eating of flesh delight thee, kill, and eat according to the blessing of the Lord thy God, which he hath given thee, in thy cities: whether it be unclean, that is to say, having blemish or defect: or clean, that is to say, sound and without blemish, such as may be offered, as the roe, and the hart, shalt thou eat it:

16. Only the blood thou shalt not eat, but thou shalt pour it out upon the earth as water.

17. Thou mayst not eat in thy towns the tithes of thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil, the firstborn of thy herds and thy cattle, nor any thing that thou vowest, and that thou wilt offer voluntarily, and the firstfruits of thy hands:

18. But thou shalt eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and maidservant, and the Levite that dwelleth in thy cities: and thou shalt rejoice and be refreshed before the Lord thy God in all things, whereunto thou shalt put thy hand.

19. Take heed thou forsake not the Levite all the time that thou livest in the land.

20. When the Lord thy God shall have enlarged thy borders, as he hath spoken to thee, and thou wilt eat the flesh that thy soul desireth:

21. And if the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name should be there, be far off, thou shalt kill of thy herds and of thy docks, as I have commanded thee, and shalt eat in thy towns, as it pleaseth thee.

22. Even as the roe and the hart is eaten, so shalt thou eat them: both the clean and unclean shall eat of them alike.

23. Only beware of this, that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is for the soul: and therefore thou must not eat the soul with the flesh:

24. But thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water,

25. That it may be well with thee and thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is pleasing in the sight of the Lord.

26. But the things which thou hast sanctified and vowed to the Lord, thou shalt take, and shalt come to the place which the Lord shall choose:

27. And shalt offer thy oblations the flesh and the blood upon the altar of the Lord thy God: the blood of thy victims thou shalt pour on the altar: and the flesh thou thyself shalt eat.

28. Observe and hear all the things that I command thee, that it may be well with thee and thy children after thee for ever, when thou shalt do what is good and pleasing in the sight of the Lord thy God.

29. When the Lord thy God shall have destroyed before thy face the nations, which then shalt go in to possess, and when thou shalt possess them, and dwell in their land:

30. Beware lest thou imitate them, after they are destroyed at thy coming in, and lest thou seek after their ceremonies, saying: As these nations have worshipped their gods, so will I also worship.

31. Thou shalt not do in like manner to the Lord thy God. For they have done to their gods all the abominations which the Lord abhorreth, offering their sons and daughters, and burning them with fire.

32. What I command thee, that only do thou to the Lord: neither add any thing, nor diminish.

1. Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.

2. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.

3. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

4. For in his hand are all the ends of the earth: and the heights of the mountains are his.

5. For the sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

6. Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us.

7. For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

8. To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:

9. As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.

10. Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart.

11. And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.