Numbers 13:27–14:4

²⁷Thus they recounted to him and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and ^ait certainly does flow with milk and honey, and ^bthis is its fruit.

²⁸“Nevertheless, ^athe people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw ^bthe ¹descendants of Anak there.

²⁹“Amalek is living in the land of ^athe Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and ^bthe Amorites are living in the hill country, and ^cthe Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”

³⁰Then Caleb quieted the people ¹before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we are surely able to overcome it.”

³¹But the men who had gone up with him said, “^aWe are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”

³²So they gave out to the sons of Israel ^aa bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land, which we have passed through to spy out on, is ^ba land that devours its ¹inhabitants; and ^call the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.

³³“There also we saw the ^aNephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and ^bwe became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

CHAPTER 14

The People Rebel

¹Then all the congregation ¹lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept ²that night.

²And all the sons of Israel ^agrumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “^bWould that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!

³“And why is Yahweh bringing us into this land, ^ato fall by the sword? ^bOur wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

⁴So they said to one another, “^aLet us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”