But the people were so angry with Caleb and Joshua that they were ready to stone them and kill them.  Then suddenly the people saw a strange sight.  The glory of the Lord, which stayed in the Holy of Holies, the inner room of the Tabernacle, now flashed out, and shone from the door of the Tabernacle.

And the Lord, out of this glory, spoke to Moses, and said, “How long will this people disobey me and despise me?  They shall not go into the good land that I have promised them.  Not one of them shall enter in, except Caleb and Joshua, who have been faithful to me.  All the people who are twenty years old and over it shall die in the desert; but their little children shall grow up in the wilderness, and when they become men they shall enter in and own the land that I promised to their fathers.  You people are not worthy of the land that I have been keeping for you.  Now turn back into the desert and stay there until you die.  After you are dead, Joshua shall lead your children into the land of Canaan.  And because Caleb showed another spirit and was true to me, and followed my will fully, Caleb shall live to go into the land, and shall have his choice of a home there.  To-morrow, turn back into the desert by the way of the Red Sea.”

And God told Moses that for every day that the spies had spent in Canaan, looking at the land the people should spend a year in the wilderness; so that they should live in the desert forty years, instead of going at once into the promised land.

When Moses told all God’s words to the people they felt worse than before.  They changed their minds as suddenly as they had made up their minds.

“No,” they all said, “we will not go back to the wilderness; we will go straight into the land, and see if we are able to take it, as Joshua and Caleb have said.”

“You must not go into the land,” said Moses.

But the people would not obey.  They marched up the mountain and tried to march at once into the land.  But they were without leaders and without order—­a mob of men, untrained and in confusion.  And the people in that part of the land, the Canaanites and the Amorites, came down upon them and killed many of them and drove them away.  Then, discouraged and beaten, they obeyed the Lord and Moses, and went once more into the desert.

And in the desert of Paran, on the south of the land of Canaan, the children of Israel stayed nearly forty years; and all because they would not trust in the Lord.

THE STORY OF GIDEON AND HIS THREE HUNDRED SOLDIERS

At last the people of Israel came into the promised land, but they did evil in the sight of the Lord in worshipping Baal; and the Lord left them to suffer for their sins.  Once the Midianites, living near the desert on the east of Israel, came against the tribes.  The two tribes that suffered the hardest fate were Ephraim, and the part of Manasseh on the west of Jordan.  For seven years the Midianites swept over their land every year, just at the time of harvest, and carried away all the crops of grain, until the Israelites had no food for themselves, and none for their sheep and cattle.  The Midianites brought also their own flocks and camels without number, which ate all the grass of the field.