Numbers 13:16-31

¹⁶Those are the names of the men whom Moses/I sent out to explore Canaan. Before they left, Moses/I gave Hoshea a new name, Joshua, which means ' Yahweh is the one who saves.'

¹⁷Before Moses/I sent them to explore Canaan, he/I said to them, “Go through the southern part of Canaan, and then go north into the hilly area.

¹⁸See what the land is like. See if the people who live there are strong or weak. See if there are many people or only a few people.

¹⁹Find out what kind of land they live in RHQ. Is it good or bad? Find out about the towns in which they live RHQ. Do they have walls around them or not?

²⁰Find out about the soil RHQ. Is it ◄fertile/good for growing crops► or not? Find out if there are trees there RHQ. Try to bring back some of the fruit that grows in that land.” He said that because it was the beginning of the time to harvest grapes.

²¹So those men went to Canaan. They went through the entire land, from the Zin wilderness in the south all the way to Rehob town near Lebo-Hamath in the north.

²²In the south, they went to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, huge men descended from Anak, lived. Hebron was a city that was built seven years before Zoan city was built in Egypt.

²³In one valley, they cut from a grapevine one cluster of grapes. Because it was very large, they needed two men to carry it on a pole. They also picked some pomegranates and some figs to carry back to their camp.

²⁴They called that place Eshcol which means ❛cluster❜ because they had cut that huge cluster of grapes there.

²⁵After they explored the land for forty days, they returned to their camp.

²⁶They came to Aaron and Moses/me and the rest of the Israeli people in the desert at Paran. They reported to everyone what they had seen. They also showed them the fruit that they had brought back.

²⁷But this is what they reported to Moses/me: “We arrived in the land that you sent us to explore. It is truly a beautiful land, and it is very fertile IDM. Here is some of the fruit.

²⁸But the people who live there are very strong. Their cities are large and are surrounded by walls. We even saw some of the huge descendants of Anak there.

²⁹The descendants of Amalek live in the southern part of the land, and the descendants of Heth, Jebus, and Amor live in the hilly area to the north. The descendants of Canaan live along the coast of the Mediterranean sea and along the Jordan River.”

³⁰When they said that, the people were afraid and started to cry out very loudly. But Caleb told the people who were standing near Moses/me to be quiet. Then he said, “We should go there and take the land, because we are certainly able to conquer it!”

³¹But the men who had gone with him said, “No, we cannot attack and defeat those people! They are much stronger than we are!”