Moses sends men to explore Canaan

13 Then the Lord said to Moses, ² ‘I will give the land of Canaan to the Israelites. Now you must send men to explore that land. Choose one man from each tribe of your ancestors. Each man must be a leader among his tribe.’

³ So Moses obeyed the Lord's command. He sent the men from the Paran desert into Canaan. Each man was a leader among the Israelites. ⁴ This is a list of their names:

¹⁶ Those are the names of the men that Moses sent to explore the land. Moses changed the name of Hoshea, the son of Nun, to Joshua.^[a]

¹⁷ Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan. He said to them, ‘Go north from here, through the Negev desert. Then continue to go north, into the place where there are hills. ¹⁸ Look at the land to see what it is like. See whether the people who live there are strong or weak. See whether few people or many people live there. ¹⁹ See whether their land is good or bad. Look at the towns where the people live. See if they have strong walls or they are in the open. ²⁰ See whether the land is able to make good food grow there, or not. See whether there are forests that grow there. Then try to get some fruit from the land and bring it back here.’ (It was the time of year for the first grapes to be ready to eat.)

²¹ So the men went and they explored the land of Canaan. They started in the desert called Zin, and they continued to Rehob, near Lebo-Hamath. ²² When they had gone up through the Negev desert in the south of the land, they arrived at Hebron. That was where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were living. They had built Hebron seven years before the Egyptians built Zoan.

²³ Then the men came to the valley called Eshcol. They cut a branch which had one group of grapes on it. It was so large that two men carried it between them on a pole. They also brought some other fruits called pomegranates and figs. ²⁴ They called that valley ‘Eshcol’ because of the large group of grapes that the Israelites cut down there.

²⁵ The men returned after they had explored the land for 40 days.

The men bring news to Moses

²⁶ The men came back to Kadesh in the Paran desert. They brought their message to Moses and Aaron and to all the Israelites there. They told them all about the land of Canaan and they showed its fruit to them. ²⁷ They said to Moses, ‘We went to look at the land where you sent us. It is certainly a land where there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. This is some of its fruit. ²⁸ But the people who live in the land are strong. Their towns are very big, and strong walls keep them safe. Also, we saw some descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites are living in Negev, the land in the south of the country. The Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hills. And the Canaanites live by the sea and by the edge of Jordan River.’

³⁰ Then Caleb stood in front of Moses and he told the Israelites to be quiet. He said, ‘We should go into the land and get power over it. We will certainly be able to do it!’

³¹ But the men who had gone into Canaan with him said, ‘These people are stronger than we are. So we cannot go and fight against them.’ ³² Those men gave to the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had explored. They said, ‘We went through that whole land and we explored it. The land seems to eat the people who live there! All the people that we saw there were very big and strong. ³³ We also saw descendants of the Nephilites there. And we felt like very small insects when we looked at them. And we seemed like very small insects to them too.’ (The descendants of Anak are also descendants of the Nephilites.)^[b]

The people turn against Moses

14 Then all the people started to weep loudly. And they cried all night. ² All the Israelites spoke bad words against Moses and Aaron. All the people said to them, ‘We would rather have died in Egypt, or even in this desert! ³ Why has the Lord brought us into this land? Its people will kill us all with swords. They will take our wives and our children for themselves. We think that it would be better for us to return to Egypt.’ ⁴ So they said to each other, ‘We should choose a new leader instead of Moses. Then we should return to Egypt.’

⁵ Then Moses and Aaron threw themselves on the ground in front of the whole group of the Israelites. ⁶ Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, were two of the men who had explored the land. They were very upset and they tore their clothes.^{[c] 7} Joshua and Caleb said to all the Israelites, ‘The land that we travelled through to explore is a very good land. ⁸ If the Lord is happy with us, he will bring us into this land. And he will give it to us. In that land there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. ⁹ But do not refuse to obey the Lord. Do not be afraid of the people in that land. They are ready for us to fight against them and win! They have no place to hide! The Lord is with us to help us. So do not be afraid of them.’

¹⁰ Then all the people wanted to throw stones at Joshua and Caleb to kill them. But the glory of the Lord appeared over the Tent of Meeting. All the Israelites could see that.

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, ‘These people continue to turn away from me. I did great miracles to show them my power. But still they will not trust me. ¹² I will send a disease to kill them. They will not get any of the good things that I wanted to give to them. Then I will make you, Moses, the ancestor of a nation greater and more powerful than they are.’

¹³ Moses said to the Lord, ‘Please do not do that! You used your great power to bring these people out of Egypt. If you destroy them, the Egyptians will hear about it. ¹⁴ Then they will tell the people who live in this land about it. They know that you, Lord, are among your people. They know that you meet with your people. They know that your cloud stays over them. They know that you lead them as a pillar of cloud during the day and as a pillar of fire during the night. ¹⁵ The people in other nations have heard of your power. So now, if you kill all your people together, the people in those nations will say, ¹⁶ “The Lord could not bring those people into the land that he had seriously promised to give to them. So he killed all of them in the desert.”

¹⁷ But now, I pray that you will show how powerful you are. You yourself have said, ¹⁸ “The Lord does not quickly become angry. His faithful love for his people continues for ever. He forgives people when they turn against him and they do bad things. But if someone is guilty, he surely punishes them. And he punishes their children, their grandchildren and their grandchildren's children.”

¹⁹ So please forgive the very bad thing that these people have done. Do that because your faithful love is so great. You have forgiven these people since they left Egypt until now. So please be kind and forgive them again now.’

²⁰ Then the Lord said, ‘I have forgiven them as you asked me to do. ²¹ As surely as I live, and all the earth will be full of my glory, I tell you this. ²² All these people have seen my glory. They have seen the miracles that I did in Egypt and in the desert. But they have tested me many times now to see if I would punish them. They still do not obey me. ²³ So I tell you, none of them will ever see the land that I promised to give to their ancestors. None of those men who did not trust me will see that place. ²⁴ But my servant Caleb has thought differently, and he has obeyed me completely. So I will bring him into the land that he explored. It will belong to his descendants. ²⁵ The Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys now. So tomorrow you must turn back. You must travel through the desert towards the Red Sea.’

²⁶ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ²⁷ ‘These evil people have complained against me too many times! I have heard the bad things that the Israelites have said against me. ²⁸ Tell them this: “I, the Lord, have heard your words. I promise you, as surely as I live, I will certainly do to you as you have said. ²⁹ Your dead bodies will fall to the ground in this desert. All the men that Moses counted will die. Those were the men who were 20 years old or older when he counted them. They complained against me and now they will die in this desert. ³⁰ None of them will go into the land that I promised to give to you to live in. The only men who will go in are Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. ³¹ You said that the people in Canaan would take your children to be their slaves. But I will bring those children into the land. You did not want that land for yourselves, but now it will belong to your children. ³² But as for you, your dead bodies will fall to the ground in this desert. ³³ Your children will be shepherds in the desert for 40 years. Because you did not trust me, your children will have trouble. That will continue until all your dead bodies are lying in the desert. ³⁴ You explored the land of Canaan for 40 days. Now you will have trouble for 40 years, because of your sins. Each day becomes one year! You will know that I am not with you, but I am against you. ³⁵ I, the Lord, have spoken! I will certainly do all these things to punish these evil people. That is because they have all joined together to speak against me. In this desert they will die. Yes, that will be the end of them!” ’

^36-37 The men who had given a bad report to the people about the land of Canaan died immediately. Moses had sent them to explore the land, but they had caused all the people to turn against the Lord. So the Lord sent a bad disease to kill those men. ³⁸ Only two men who had gone to explore the land did not die. They were Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

³⁹ When Moses gave God's message to all the Israelites, the people were very sad. ⁴⁰ But the next morning, they got up early. They went up to the top of the hills near there. They said, ‘We have certainly done a bad thing. But now we are ready! We will go to the place that the Lord has promised to give to us.’

⁴¹ But Moses said, ‘You are still not obeying the Lord's command. Why is that? It will not happen as you want. ⁴² Do not go into that land. The Lord is not with you. So your enemies will win against you. ⁴³ The Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you. They will kill you with their swords. That will happen because you have refused to obey the Lord. So the Lord will not be with you to help you.’

⁴⁴ But the people did not listen to Moses. Moses and the Lord's Covenant Box stayed in the camp. But still the men went up to the top of the hills. ⁴⁵ Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in those hills ran down. They attacked the Israelite men and they chased them to Hormah.^[d]