Numbers 13:17–33

¹⁷When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up ¹there into ^athe ²Negev; then go up into the hill country.

¹⁸“See what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many.

¹⁹“How is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are they ¹like open camps or with fortifications?

²⁰“^aHow is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? ¹Make an ^beffort then to get some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.

²¹So they went up and spied out the land from ^athe wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, ^1bat Lebo-hamath.

²²When they had gone up into ^athe Negev, ¹they came to Hebron where ^bAhiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the ²descendants of ^cAnak were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before ^dZoan in Egypt.)

²³Then they came to the ¹valley of ^2aEshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men, with some of the pomegranates and the figs.

²⁴That place was called the valley of ¹Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.

The Spies’ Reports

²⁵When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,

²⁶they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel ¹in the wilderness of Paran, at ^aKadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

²⁷Thus they told 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 will surely 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 through which we have gone, in spying it out, 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.”