Numbers 13

¹The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince amongst them.”

³Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of the LORD. All of them were men who were heads of the children of Israel. ⁴These were their names:

²¹So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath. ²²They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) ²³They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. ²⁴That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there. ²⁵They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. ²⁶They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. ²⁹Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan.”

³⁰Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”

³¹But the men who went up with him said, “We aren’t able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” ³²They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature. ³³There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”