Twelve Men Check Out the Land of Canaan

13 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Send some men to check out the land of Canaan. I am giving it to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of Israel’s tribes.”

³ So Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. He sent them as the Lord had commanded. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.

²⁵ At the end of 40 days, the men returned from checking out the land.

The Men Report on What They Found

²⁶ The men came back to Moses, Aaron and the whole community of Israel. The people were at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There the men reported to Moses and Aaron and all the people. They showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷ They gave Moses their report. They said, “We went into the land you sent us to. It really does have plenty of milk and honey! Here’s some fruit from the land. ²⁸ But the people who live there are powerful. Their cities have high walls around them and are very large. We even saw members of the family line of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites live in the Negev Desert. The Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the central hill country. The Canaanites live near the Mediterranean Sea. They also live along the Jordan River.”

³⁰ Then Caleb interrupted the men speaking to Moses. He said, “We should go up and take the land. We can certainly do it.”

³¹ But the men who had gone up with him spoke. They said, “We can’t attack those people. They are stronger than we are.” ³² The men spread a bad report about the land among the Israelites. They said, “The land we checked out destroys those who live in it. All the people we saw there are very big and tall. ³³ We saw the Nephilim there. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. And that’s also how we seemed to them.” The family line of Anak came from the Nephilim.