NumbersChapter 13

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¹And the LORD said to Moses, ²"Send out men to spy out the land of Canaan. I am giving it to the Israelites. Send one man from each of their fathers' tribes. Each one must be a leader among them." ³So Moses sent them out from the Wilderness of Paran, as the LORD commanded. All the men were leaders of the Israelites. ⁴These were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur. ⁵From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori. ⁶From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh. ⁷From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph. ⁸From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun. ⁹From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu. ¹⁰From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi. ¹¹From the tribe of Manasseh (one of Joseph's tribes), Gaddi son of Susi. ¹²From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli. ¹³From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael. ¹⁴From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi. ¹⁵And from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. ¹⁶These were the names of the men Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua. ¹⁷Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan. He told them, "Go up through the Negev and into the hill country. ¹⁸See what the land is like. See if the people there are strong or weak, few or many. ¹⁹Is the land they live in good or bad? Are their towns open camps, or do they have walls? ²⁰Is the soil rich or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Be brave, and bring back some of the fruit of the land." (It was the time of year for the first ripe grapes.) ²¹So they went up and spied out the land. They went from the Wilderness of Zin all the way to Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath. ²²They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai lived there. They were the descendants of Anak. Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. ²³They came to the Valley of Eshcol. There they cut off a branch with one bunch of grapes on it. Two men carried it on a pole between them. They also took some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴That place was named the Valley of Eshcol because of the bunch of grapes the Israelites cut there.a ²⁵After forty days the men came back from spying out the land. ²⁶They came back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel. The people were at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran. The men gave a report to the whole community. They showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷They told Moses, "We went into the land you sent us to. It really does flow with milk and honey! Here is some of its fruit. ²⁸But the people who live there are strong. Their cities are large and have strong walls. We even saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹The Amalekites live in the Negev. The Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan River." ³⁰Then Caleb quieted the people in front of Moses. He said, "We must go up and take the land. We can surely beat them!" ³¹But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't fight those people. They are stronger than we are!" ³²So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land they had spied out. They said, "The land we explored eats up the people who live there. All the people we saw there are very tall. ³³We even saw the Nephilim there. The descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! We felt as small as grasshoppers. And we must have looked that way to them too!"