How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they" (verses 11—12). That's when Moses pleaded with God not to wipe them out even for His own reputation. And God relented.
- James MacDonald