Numbers 13
1Yahweh spoke to Moses:
2“Send men to scout out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel. Send one man from each ancestral tribe, each a leader among them.”
3Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at Yahweh’s command. All of them were men who were heads of the sons of Israel.
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 Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, 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;
15from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.
16These were the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land. Moses called Hoshea son of Nun Joshua.
17Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up this way through the Negev, then go up into the hill country.
18See what the land is like and whether the people living in it are strong or weak, few or many.
19Is the land they live in good or bad? What are the towns they live in like—open camps or fortified places?
20Is the land rich or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Be courageous and bring back some of the land’s fruit.” It was the season of the first ripe grapes.
21They went up and scouted out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at the entrance to Hamath.
22They went up through the Negev, and one came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, descendants of Anak, were. Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.
23They came to the Eshcol Valley and cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole, along with some pomegranates and figs.
24That place was called the Eshcol Valley because of the cluster the sons of Israel cut down there.
25After forty days they returned from scouting out the land.
26They came back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They reported to them and the whole congregation and showed them the land’s fruit.
27They told him, “We came to the land you sent us to. It really does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
28But the people living in the land are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We also saw the descendants of Anak there.
29Amalek lives in the Negev. The Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”
30Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of it! We certainly can prevail!”
31But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot go up against the people, because they are stronger than we are.”
32They spread a bad report about the land they had scouted out among the sons of Israel, saying, “The land we traveled through to scout out devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw in it were men of great size.
33We saw the Nephilim there—the sons of Anak come from the Nephilim. We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes.”