Numbers 13:30–14:3

³⁰Then Caleb^v silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

³¹But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”^{w 32}And they spread among the Israelites a bad report^x about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours^y those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.^{z 33}We saw the Nephilim^a there (the descendants of Anak^b come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers^c in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

The People Rebel

14That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.^{d 2}All the Israelites grumbled^e against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt!^f Or in this wilderness!^{g 3}Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?^h Our wives and childrenⁱ will be taken as plunder.^j Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?^k”