Israel’s Refusal to Enter the Land

19 “Then we set out from Horeb and ywent through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And zwe came to Kadesh-barnea. 20 And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. 21 See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. aDo not fear or be dismayed.’ 22 Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’ 23 The thing seemed good to me, and bI took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. 24 And cthey turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out. 25 And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.’

26 “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. 27 And dyou murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord ehated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, fto give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28 Where are we going up? gOur brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, h“The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen ithe sons of the Anakim there.” ’ 29 Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. 30 The Lord your God who goes before you jwill himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God kcarried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ 32 Yet in spite of this word lyou did not believe the Lord your God, 33 mwho went before you in the way nto seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.