10. The Lord your God has made your population increase so that you are now as numerous as the stars in the sky.
11. May the Lord God of your ancestors make you a thousand times more numerous, and may he bless you as he has promised.
12. How can I take care of your problems, your troubles, and your disagreements all by myself?
13. From each of your tribes, choose some men who are wise, intelligent, and experienced, and I’ll appoint them to be your leaders.”
14. You agreed that this was a good idea.
15. So I took the heads of your tribes who were wise and experienced men and made them officers for each of your tribes. I put them in charge of groups of 1,000, or 100, or 50, or 10 people.
16. Also at that time I gave these instructions to your judges: “Hear the cases that your people bring. Judge each case fairly, no matter whether it is ⌊a dispute⌋ between two Israelites or ⌊a dispute⌋ between an Israelite and a non-Israelite.
17. Be impartial in your decisions. Listen to the least important people the same way you listen to the most important people. Never be afraid of anyone, since your decisions come from God. You may bring me any case that’s too hard for you, and I will hear it.”
18. So I told you how to handle these situations.
19. So we left Mount Horeb, as the Lord our God had commanded. We traveled through all that vast and dangerous desert you saw on the way to the mountain region of the Amorites. At last we came to Kadesh Barnea.
20. Then I said to you, “We have come to the mountain region of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.
21. The Lord your God is giving you this land. Go ahead! Take possession of it, as the Lord God of your ancestors told you. Don’t be afraid or terrified.”
22. All of you came to me and said, “Let’s send men ahead of us to gather information about the land for us. Have them report to us about the route we should take and the cities we’ll come to.”
23. It seemed like a good idea to me. So I chose 12 of your men, one from each tribe.
24. They left and went into the mountains. When they came to the Eshcol Valley, they explored it.
25. They took some of the region’s fruit with them and brought it back to us. They reported, “The land that the Lord our God is giving us is good.”
26. But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and refused to go.
27. You complained in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us! That’s why he brought us out of Egypt. He wanted to hand us over to the Amorites so that they could destroy us!
28. Where are we going anyway? Our own men have discouraged us by saying, ‘The people there are taller and stronger than we are. The cities are big with sky-high walls! We even saw the people of Anak there.’ ”
29. Then I said to you, “Don’t tremble. Don’t be afraid of them.