¹⁹Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we left Mount Sinai and went toward the mountain country of the Amorite people. We went through that large and terrible desert you saw, and then we came to Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰I said to you, “You have now come to the mountain country of the Amorites, to the land the Lord our God will give us. ²¹Look, here it is! Go up and take it. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you to do this, so don’t be afraid and don’t worry.”

²²Then all of you came to me and said, “Let’s send men before us to spy out the land. They can come back and tell us about the way we should go and the cities we will find.”

²³I thought that was a good idea, so I chose twelve of your men, one for each tribe. ²⁴They left and went up to the mountains, and when they came to the Valley of Eshcol they explored it. ²⁵They took some of the fruit from that land and brought it down to us, saying, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

Israel Refuses to Enter

²⁶But you refused to go. You would not obey the command of the Lord your God, ²⁷but grumbled in your tents, saying, “The Lord hates us. He brought us out of Egypt just to give us to the Amorites, who will destroy us. ²⁸Where can we go now? The spies we sent have made us afraid, because they said, ‘The people there are stronger and taller than we are. The cities are big, with walls up to the sky. And we saw the Anakites there!’ ”

²⁹Then I said to you, “Don’t be frightened; don’t be afraid of those people. ³⁰The Lord your God will go ahead of you and fight for you as he did in Egypt; you saw him do it. ³¹And in the desert you saw how the Lord your God carried you, like one carries a child. And he has brought you safely all the way to this place.”

³²But you still did not trust the Lord your God, even though ³³he had always gone before you to find places for you to camp. In a fire at night and in a cloud during the day, he showed you which way to go.

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