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Men Sent to Spy out the Land

¹ The Lord said to Moses, ² "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan which I am going to give to the people of Israel. Send a man from each of their fathers' families, every one a leader among them." ³ So Moses sent them from the desert of Paran, as the Lord had told him. All of the men were heads of the people of Israel. ⁴ These were their names. There was Shammua the son of Zaccur from the family of Reuben, ⁵ Shaphat the son of Hori from the family of Simeon, ⁶ Caleb the son of Jephunneh from the family of Judah, ⁷ and Igal the son of Joseph from the family of Issachar. ⁸ There was Hoshea the son of Nun from the family of Ephraim, ⁹ Palti the son of Raphu from the family of Benjamin, ¹⁰ Gaddiel the son of Sodi from the family of Zebulun, ¹¹ and Gaddi the son of Susi from the family of Joseph, from the family of Manasseh. ¹² There was Ammiel the son of Gemalli from the family of Dan, ¹³ Sethur the son of Michael from the family of Asher, ¹⁴ Nahbi the son of Vophsi from the family of Naphtali, ¹⁵ and Geuel the son of Machi from the family of Gad. ¹⁶ These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. But Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.

¹⁷ Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan. He said to them, "Go up there into the Negev. Then go up into the hill country. ¹⁸ See what the land is like. See if the people who live in it are strong or weak, and if they are few or many. ¹⁹ Find out if the land they live in is good or bad. See if the cities they live in are open or if they have walls. ²⁰ Find out if the land is rich or poor, and if there are trees in it or not. Then try to get some of the fruit of the land." Now this was the gathering time of the first grown grapes.

²¹ So they went up and spied out the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, at Lebo-hamath. ²² When they had gone up into the Negev, they came to Hebron. Anak's sons Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

²³ Then they came to the valley of Eshcol. They cut down a branch from there with some grapes on it. And they carried it on a long piece of wood between two men, with some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴ That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of much fruit the men of Israel cut down from there.

²⁵ They returned from looking over the land after forty days. ²⁶ And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the people of Israel in the desert of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought news to them and to all the people, and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷ They told Moses, "We went to the land where you sent us. It does flow with milk and honey. This is its fruit. ²⁸ But the people who live in the land are strong. The cities have walls and are very large. And we saw the children of Anak there. ²⁹ Amalek is living in the land of the Negev. The Hittites and Jebusites and Amorites are living in the hill country. And the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan."

³⁰ Then Caleb told the people in front of Moses to be quiet. And he said, "Let us go up at once and take the land. For we are well able to take it in battle." ³¹ But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go against the people. They are too strong for us." ³² So they brought the people of Israel bad news about the land they had spied out, saying, "The land we have gone to spy out is a land that destroys those who go there to live. All the people we saw in it are very large. ³³ We saw the Nephilim there. (The sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim.) We looked like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."