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Lord said to Moses, 2 “Send men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. You are to send out a man who is a leader among them from each of the ancestral tribes.”
3 So Moses sent them out from the Wilderness of Paran at the Lord’s command. All the men were leaders of the Israelites. 4 These are their names:
from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;
5 from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori;
6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh;
7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph;
8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;
9 from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu;
10 from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi;
11 from the tribe of Manasseh, (of the tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi;
12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli;
13 from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael;
14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi;
15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.
16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to explore the land. Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the nameJoshua.
17 When Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like, and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What are the cities like where they live, are they open or fortified? 20 Is the land fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Be of good courage, and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” It was the season for the first ripe grapes.
21 So they went up and explored the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance to Hamath. 22 They went out through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were living. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt). 23 When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes, which was carried on a pole between two of the men. They also brought some pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut down from there. 25 At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.
26 The men went back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran. There the reported to them and to the whole community, and they showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this report: “We went into the land where you sent us, and it really does flow with milk and honey, and this is some of its fruit. 28 But the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We must go up at once and take possession of it, for we can certainly conquer it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread a bad report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we passed through to explore is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the men we saw in it are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we must have seemed the same to them too.”