¹³ But Moses replied to the Lord, “The Egyptians will hear about it, for by your strength you brought up this people from them. ¹⁴ They will tell it to the inhabitants of this land.^(A) They have heard that you, Lord, are among these people, how you, Lord, are seen face to face, how your cloud stands over them, and how you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.^{(B) 15} If you kill this people with a single blow,^[a](C) the nations that have heard of your fame^(D) will declare, ¹⁶ ‘Since the Lord wasn’t able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them,^(E) he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^(F)

¹⁸ I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angering him.

²⁶ I prayed to the Lord:

Lord God, do not annihilate your people, your inheritance, whom you redeemed^(A) through your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. ²⁷ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Disregard this people’s stubbornness, and their wickedness and sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, those in the land you brought us from will say, ‘Because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’^{(B) 29} But they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and outstretched arm.^(C)