Numbers 13:27–14:4

²⁷And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It ^xflows with milk and honey, ^yand this is its fruit. ^28zHowever, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. ^29aThe Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. ^bAnd the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

³⁰But ^cCaleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” ^31dThen the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” ³²So ^ethey brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and ^fall the people that we saw in it are of great height. ³³And there we saw the ^gNephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the ^gNephilim), and we seemed to ourselves ^hlike grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

The People Rebel

14Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people ⁱwept that night. ²And all the people of Israel ^jgrumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or ^kwould that we had died in this wilderness! ³Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? ^lOur wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” ⁴And they said to one another, ^m“Let us choose a leader and ⁿgo back to Egypt.”