Good News Bible

Numbers 13:22-33 Good News Bible (GNB)

22. They went first into the southern part of the land and came to Hebron, where the clans of Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of a race of giants called the Anakim, lived. (Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

23. They came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there they cut off a branch which had one bunch of grapes on it so heavy that it took two men to carry it on a pole between them. They also brought back some pomegranates and figs.

24. (That place was named the Valley of Eshcol because of the bunch of grapes the Israelites cut off there.)

25. After exploring the land for forty days, the spies returned

26. to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had brought.

27. They said to Moses, “We explored the land and found it to be rich and fertile; and here is some of its fruit.

28. But the people who live there are powerful, and their cities are very large and well fortified. Even worse, we saw the descendants of the giants there.

29. Amalekites live in the southern part of the land; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and Canaanites live by the Mediterranean Sea and along the River Jordan.”

30. Caleb silenced the people who were complaining against Moses, and said, “We should attack now and take the land; we are strong enough to conquer it.”

31. But the men who had gone with Caleb said, “No, we are not strong enough to attack them; the people there are more powerful than we are.”

32. So they spread a false report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, “That land doesn't even produce enough to feed the people who live there. Everyone we saw was very tall,

33. and we even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must have looked to them.”