ק (Qof) Those who pursued us were swifter than eagles ¹  in the sky. ²  They chased us over the mountains; they ambushed us in the wilderness.

Yet I had pity on ¹  them and did not destroy them, so I did not make an end of them in the wilderness.

“‘But I said to their children ¹  in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, ²  nor defile yourselves with their idols.

I also swore ¹  to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands. ² 

I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

However, in the future I will allure her; ¹  I will lead ²  her back into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

I brought you up from the land of Egypt; I led you through the wilderness for forty years so you could take the Amorites’ land as your own.

You did not bring me ¹  sacrifices and grain offerings during the forty years you spent in the wilderness, family ²  of Israel.

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not follow my statutes and they rejected my regulations (the one who obeys them will live by them), and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I decided to pour out ¹  my rage on them in the wilderness and destroy them. ² 

The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³ 

but the goat which has been designated by lot for Azazel is to be stood alive ¹  before the Lord to make atonement on it by sending it away to Azazel into the wilderness. ² 

¹ Now the Lord ²  spoke ³  to Moses in the tent of meeting ⁴  in the wilderness ⁵  of Sinai ⁶  on the first day of the second month of the second year after ⁷  the Israelites ⁸  departed from the land of Egypt. ⁹  He said:

Nadab and Abihu died ¹  before the Lord ²  when they offered ³  strange ⁴  fire ⁵  before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. ⁶  So Eleazar and Ithamar ministered as priests ⁷  in the presence of ⁸  Aaron their father.

And they observed the Passover ¹  on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight in the wilderness of Sinai; in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did.

They came back ¹  to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. ²  They reported ³  to the whole community and showed the fruit of the land.

And all the Israelites murmured ¹  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ²  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ³  in this wilderness!

For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted ¹  me now these ten times, ²  and have not obeyed me, ³ 

Your dead bodies ¹  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

I, the Lord, have said, “I will surely do so to all this evil congregation that has gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will be finished, and there they will die!”’”

Is it a small thing ¹  that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, ²  to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince ³  over us?