¹³ Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.^{(A) 14} And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard^(B) that you, Lord, are with these people^(C) and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face,^(D) that your cloud stays over them,^(E) and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.^{(F) 15} If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath,^(G) so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^(H)

¹⁸ Then once again I fell^(A) prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water,^(B) because of all the sin you had committed,^(C) doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so arousing his anger.

²⁶ I prayed to the Lord and said, “Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people,^(A) your own inheritance^(B) that you redeemed^(C) by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.^{(D) 27} Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness^(E) of this people, their wickedness and their sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, the country^(F) from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them,^(G) he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.’^{(H) 29} But they are your people,^(I) your inheritance^(J) that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.^(K)”