Numbers 13

₁The Lord said to Moses: ₂‘You must send people to go and look at the land of Canaan, the land that I gave to the Israelites. Send one person from each tribe, one of the leaders of the tribe.’

₃Moses then sent people from the Paran Desert. They were all leaders_of_Israel. ₄Their names were:

₁₆These are the names of the men that Moses sent to go and look at the land. Moses changed the name of Hosea, son of Nun, to Joshua. ₁₇When Moses sent them to go and look what the land was like, he said to them: ‘You must go from here through the Southern Desert of Canaan to the mountains. ₁₈Go to the land and see if the people who live there are strong or weak, and if they are only a few or if they are many. ₁₉See if the land where they live is good or bad and if they live in camps or in cities that have strong walls. ₂₀See if the ground is fertile or not and if there are a lot of trees or not. Don't be afraid to bring some of the fruit from the land with you when you come back.’ It was during the time when the grapes started to ripen.

₂₁The men went and they looked at the land from the Zin Desert to the town of Rehob near Lebo-Hamath. ₂₂When they went through the Southern Desert and came to the city of Hebron, they saw the Anakite people, Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai. The city of Hebron was old. They had built it 7 years before the city of Zoan in Egypt. ₂₃When the men came to a valley where there were grapes, they cut off a branch of grapes. There was a bunch of grapes on the branch and 2 of the men tied the grapes to a pole and they carried it on their shoulders. They also brought pomegranates and figs with them. ₂₄They named that place Grape Valley because the Israelites cut the grapes off there.

₂₅The men came back after 40 days, after they had looked at everything in the land. ₂₆They came to Moses and Aaron and all the Israelites who came together at the town of Kadesh in the Paran Desert. The men told them what they had seen and showed them what the fruit of the land looked like. ₂₇They said to Moses: ‘We went to the land that you sent us to. This is a land with a lot of food, milk and honey. Here is some of the fruit of the land. ₂₈But there is a problem: The people who live in the land are strong and they live in big cities that have strong walls. We also saw Anakite people there. ₂₉In the Southern Desert there are Amalekites who live there, in the mountains there are Hittites who live there, and also Jebusites, and Amorites, and next to the sea and the Jordan River are Canaanites who live there.’

₃₀Caleb told the people not to complain or speak against Moses. Caleb said: ‘We must go, and we must take the land. We can do it, this is sure.’

₃₁But the men who went with Caleb said: ‘No, we can not attack those people and go to war_against them. They are too strong for us.’

₃₂Then the other men said bad things to the Israelites about the land that they had seen. They said: ‘We went through the land to look at everything. All the people that we saw there are very big. They will kill anyone who tries to attack them. ₃₃We also saw giants there. We felt like locusts next to them and that is what they will think of us.’

The Anakite people are the descendants of the giants.