Numbers 13

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses. He said, [a] 2 “Send out men for yourself, and let them spy out the land of the Canaanites, which I am giving to the children of Israel to hold. Send one man for each tribe, by their fathers' houses, every one of them a leader.” 3 And Moses sent them out from the wilderness of Paran at the word of the Lord. All of them were leaders of the children of Israel. 4 And these are their names. From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur. 5 From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori. 6 From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh. 7 From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph. 8 From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun. 9 From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu. 10 From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi. 11 From the tribe of Joseph, of the sons of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi. 12 From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli. 13 From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael. 14 From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi. 15 From the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. 16 These are the names of the men Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea son of Nun, Joshua. [b]

17 And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, 17 “Go up this way through the wilderness, and you will come up into the hill country; 18 and you are to see what the land is like, and the people living on it — whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many; 19 and what the land they live on is like, whether it is good or bad, and what the cities are that they live in, whether they live in walled cities or unwalled; 20 and what the land is, whether rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” 20 And the days were the days of spring, the first of the grapes.

21 And they went up and looked over the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, on the way to Hamath. 22 And they went up through the wilderness and came as far as Hebron; and Ahiman and Sheshai and Talmai were there, the descendants of Anak. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. [c] 23 And they came to the Valley of the Cluster and looked it over, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes on it and carried it on a pole between two of them; and they took some of the pomegranates and the figs. 24 And they called that place the Valley of the Cluster, because of the cluster the children of Israel cut down there. [d] 25 And they came back from looking over the land after forty days.

26 And they went and came to Moses and Aaron and the whole gathering of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought word to them and to the whole gathering, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they reported to him and said, 27 “We went into the land you sent us to, and it is a land flowing with milk and honey — and this is its fruit. 28 Only the nation living on it is bold, and they have very great and strong walled towns, and we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 And Amalek lives in the land toward the south, and the Hittite and the Hivite and the Jebusite and the Amorite live in the hill country, and the Canaanite lives by the sea and along the Jordan.”

30 And Caleb quieted the people in front of Moses and said to him, 30 “No — we will certainly go up and take it for our own, because we are well able to overcome them.” 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, 31 “We cannot go up. We are not able to go up against that nation, because it is much stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread a terrifying report about the land they had looked over, among the children of Israel, saying, 32 “The land we went through to look it over is a land that eats up the people living on it, and all the people we saw in it are men of enormous size. 33 And there we saw the giants; and we were like locusts before them — and that is what we were in their eyes too.”