Deuteronomy 1:19–33

Spies Sent Out

¹⁹Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites^y through all that vast and dreadful wilderness^z that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea.^{a 20}Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. ²¹See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession^b of it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid;^c do not be discouraged.”^d

²²Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy^e out the land^f for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.”

²³The idea seemed good to me; so I selected^g twelve of you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshkol^h and explored it. ²⁵Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported,ⁱ “It is a good land^j that the Lord our God is giving us.”^k

Rebellion Against the Lord

²⁶But you were unwilling to go up;^l you rebelled^m against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷You grumbledⁿ in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller^o than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites^p there.’ ”

²⁹Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid^q of them.^{r 30}The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight^s for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, ³¹and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried^t you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”^u

³²In spite of this,^v you did not trust^w in the Lord your God, ³³who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day,^x to search^y out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.