Ezekiel 20:21
Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
The children are the second wilderness generation, who rebelled by refusing to walk in the statutes, refusing to keep the judgments to do them, and polluting the Sabbaths. The judgments were set before them as a way of life, with the promise that the man who does them shall live in them.
Their polluting of the Sabbath through the forty years in the wilderness was not open and bold transgression but lax observance and neglect of the fourth commandment, even though the weekly miracle of the manna kept its sacred obligation before them. Because of that rebellion God declared He would pour out His fury upon them to accomplish His anger against them in the wilderness. This Sabbath pollution stands among the reasons the first generation was shut out of the promised land. Their children did not learn the lesson but continued the same neglect through the wandering, so while that second generation was permitted to enter Canaan, it was declared that they would afterward be scattered among the heathen in the land of promise.