1Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
2"Send men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each ancestral tribe."
3Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, as Yahweh commanded. All those men were leaders among the Israelites.
4These were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur.
5From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori.
6From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh.
7From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph.
8From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun.
9From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu.
10From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi.
11From the tribe of Joseph (that is, the tribe of Manasseh), Gaddi son of Susi.
12From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli.
13From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael.
14From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi.
15From the tribe of Gad: Geuel, Machi's son.
16These are the names of the men Moses sent to explore the land. Moses had named Hoshea, Nun's son, Joshua.
17Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan and told them, "Go up this way through the Negev and into the hill country.
18See what the land is like. Also, see if the people living there are strong or weak, few or many;
19and find out what the land they live in is like—is it good or bad? What are the cities they live in like—are they just camps or fortified towns?
20Also, find out if the soil is rich or poor, and if there are trees or not. Be brave, and bring back some of the fruit from the land." It was the season when the first grapes were ripe.
21So they went up and explored the land from the Zin Desert all the way to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath.
22They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, descendants of Anak, lived. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23They came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut off a branch with a single cluster of grapes, so large it took two of them to carry it on a pole. They also brought back some pomegranates and figs.
24That place was named the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut from there.
25They returned from exploring the land after forty days.
26They went back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel in the Paran Desert at Kadesh. They gave their report to them and to the entire community, and they showed them the fruit of the land.
27They told Moses, "We went to the land where you sent us, and it truly is a land flowing with milk and honey! And here is some of its fruit.
28However, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw some of Anak's descendants there.
29The Amalekites live in the Negev. The Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. And the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan River."
30Caleb quieted the people who were complaining to Moses and said, "We should go up at once and take possession of it, because we are perfectly able to conquer it!"
31But the men who had gone with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are."
32So they spread a bad report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we went through to explore it is a land that devours those who live in it. All the people we saw there were very tall.
33We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). In our own eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have looked the same to them."