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The Spies Sent into Canaan

¹ Then ^(C1)Yahweh spoke to Moses saying,² "^(C1)Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers' tribes, every one a leader among them."³ So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the ^(F1)command of Yahweh, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel.⁴ These then were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur;⁵ from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori;⁶ from the tribe of Judah, ^(C1)Caleb the son of Jephunneh;⁷ from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph;⁸ from the tribe of Ephraim, ^(C1)Hoshea the son of Nun;⁹ from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu;¹⁰ from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi;¹¹ from the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi;¹² from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli;¹³ from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael;¹⁴ from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi;¹⁵ from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.¹⁶ These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; but Moses called ^(C1)Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.

¹⁷ So Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, "Go up ^(F1)there into ^(C1)the ^(F2)Negev; then go up into the hill country.¹⁸ "And see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many.¹⁹ "And how is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are they ^(F1)like open camps or with fortifications?²⁰ "^(C1)And how is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? ^(F1)Make an ^(C2)effort then to get some of the fruit of the land." Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.

²¹ So they went up and spied out the land from ^(C1)the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, ^(F1)(C2)at Lebo-hamath.²² And they had gone up into ^(C1)the Negev and ^(F1)came to Hebron where ^(C2)Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the ^(F2)descendants of ^(C3)Anak were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before ^(C4)Zoan in Egypt.)

²³ Then they came to the ^(F1)valley of ^(F2)(C1)Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men with some of the pomegranates and the figs.²⁴ That place was called the valley of ^(F1)Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.

The Spies Recount What They Saw

²⁵ Then they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,²⁶ and went and came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel ^(F1)in the wilderness of Paran, at ^(C1)Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.²⁷ Thus they recounted to him and said, "We went in to the land where you sent us; and ^(C1)it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and ^(C2)this is its fruit.²⁸ "Nevertheless, ^(C1)the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw ^(C2)the ^(F1)descendants of Anak there.²⁹ "Amalek is living in the land of ^(C1)the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and ^(C2)the Amorites are living in the hill country, and ^(C3)the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan."

³⁰ Then Caleb quieted the people ^(F1)before Moses and said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we are surely able to overcome it."³¹ But the men who had gone up with him said, "^(C1)We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us."³² So they gave out to the sons of Israel ^(C1)a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land, which we have passed through to spy out on, is ^(C2)a land that devours its ^(F1)inhabitants; and ^(C3)all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.³³ "There also we saw the ^(C1)Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and ^(C2)we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight."