Spies Sent into Canaan

13 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”^(A)

The Report of the Spies

²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶ And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.^{(A) 27} And they reported to him and said, “We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.^{(B) 28} Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large, and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.^{(C) 29} The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”^(D)

³⁰ But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”^{(E) 31} Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we.”^{(F) 32} So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great size.^{(G) 33} There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim), and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”^(H)

The People Rebel

14 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.