It’s likely that the exodus generation

Invented this phrase.

Instead of taking the opportunity

To enter and fight for the Promised Land

They played on their own worst fears

Listening to the naysayer scouts   

Rather than listening

To the inner voice of possibility.

Their great reward:

A sentence of up to forty years

Wandering in a broiling desert

So they could drop dead 

Short of the Promised Land.

It’s been whitewashed

By commentators 

As the necessity of the older generation

To die  out so their children

Would enter the land.

What saints!

Don’t fool yourself.  

And don’t make the same mistake in your own life.