Deuteronomy 1:19-33

Living Bible

^19-21 “Then we left Mount Horeb and traveled through the great and terrible desert, finally arriving among the Amorite hills to which the Lord our God had directed us. We were then at Kadesh-barnea on the border of the Promised Land^[a] and I said to the people, ‘The Lord God has given us this land. Go and possess it as he told us to. Don’t be afraid! Don’t even doubt!’

²² “But they replied, ‘First let’s send out spies to discover the best route of entry, and to decide which cities we should capture first.’

²³ “This seemed like a good idea, so I chose twelve spies, one from each tribe. ^24-25 They crossed into the hills and came to the valley of Eshcol, and returned with samples of the local fruit. One look was enough to convince us that it was indeed a good land the Lord our God had given us. ²⁶ But the people refused to go in and rebelled against the Lord’s command.

²⁷ “They murmured and complained in their tents and said, ‘The Lord must hate us, bringing us here from Egypt to be slaughtered by these Amorites. ²⁸ What are we getting into? Our brothers who spied out the land have frightened us with their report. They say that the people of the land are tall and powerful, and that the walls of their cities rise high into the sky! They have even seen giants there—the descendants of the Anakim!’

²⁹ “But I said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid! ³⁰ The Lord God is your leader, and he will fight for you with his mighty miracles, just as you saw him do in Egypt. ³¹ And you know how he has cared for you again and again here in the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child!’ ³² But nothing I said did any good.

“They refused to believe the Lord our God ³³ who had led them all the way, and had selected the best places for them to camp, and had guided them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.