1The LORD spoke to Moses and said,
2"Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. From every tribe of their fathers you shall send one man, and each one must be a leader among them."
3So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, as the LORD had commanded. All those men were heads of the children of Israel.
4These were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur;
5from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori;
8from the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea the son of Nun;
9from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu;
10from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi;
12from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli;
13from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael;
14from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi;
15from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
16These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.
17Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, "Go up this way to the south, and go up into the mountain."
18See what the land is like. See whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.
19See what kind of land they live in, whether it is good or bad. See what kind of cities they live in, whether they live in tents or in strongholds.
20"See whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be of good courage, and bring back some of the fruit of the land." Now it was the time of the first ripe grapes.
21So they went up and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, on the way to Hamath.
22They went up by the south and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23They came to the brook of Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and some of the figs.
24That place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes that the children of Israel cut down there.
25After forty days they came back from exploring the land.
26They went and came to Moses and Aaron and all the assembly of the children of Israel, in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the assembly, and showed them the fruit of the land.
27They told him, "We came to the land where you sent us. It surely flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit."
28But the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are walled and very great. We also saw the children of Anak there.
29"The Amalekites live in the land of the south. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the mountains. The Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan."
30Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once and take the land, for we are well able to overcome it."
31But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against those people, for they are stronger than we are."
32And they gave the children of Israel a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we went through to explore is a land that eats up those who live in it. All the people we saw in it are men of great size."
33"There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come from the giants. In our own eyes we were like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes."