Numbers 13:27–14:4

²⁷They told Moses, “We went to the land where you sent us, and it is a fertile land! Here is some of its fruit. ²⁸But the people who live there are strong. Their cities are walled and very large. We even saw some Anakites there. ²⁹The Amalekites live in the southern area; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the mountains; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan River.”

³⁰Then Caleb told the people near Moses to be quiet, and he said, “We should certainly go up and take the land for ourselves. We can certainly do it.”

³¹But the men who had gone with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” ³²And those men gave the Israelites a bad report about the land they explored, saying, “The land that we explored is too large to conquer. All the people we saw are very tall. ³³We saw the Nephilim people there. (The Anakites come from the Nephilim people.) We felt like grasshoppers, and we looked like grasshoppers to them.”

The People Complain Again

14That night all the people in the camp began crying loudly. ²All the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron, and all the people said to them, “We wish we had died in Egypt or in this desert. ³Why is the Lord bringing us to this land to be killed with swords? Our wives and children will be taken away. We would be better off going back to Egypt.” ⁴They said to each other, “Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”