15. “So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and respected men, and set them over you as leaders: officials for thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and officers for your tribes.
16. I commanded your judges at that time: Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge rightly between a man and his brother or a foreign resident.
17. Do not show partiality when deciding a case; listen to small and great alike. Do not be intimidated by anyone, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too difficult for you, and I will hear it.
18. At that time I commanded you about all the things you were to do.
19. “We then set out from Horeb and went across all the great and terrible wilderness you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God had commanded us. When we reached Kadesh-barnea,
20. I said to you: You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.
21. See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up and take possession of it as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.
22. “Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let’s send men ahead of us, so that they may explore the land for us and bring us back a report about the route we should go up and the cities we will come to.’
23. The plan seemed good to me, so I selected 12 men from among you, one man for each tribe.
24. They left and went up into the hill country and came to the Valley of Eshcol, scouting the land.
25. They took some of the fruit from the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us back a report: ‘The land the Lord our God is giving us is good.’
26. “But you were not willing to go up, rebelling against the command of the Lord your God.
27. You grumbled in your tents and said, ‘The Lord brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites so they would destroy us, because He hated us.
28. Where can we go? Our brothers have discouraged us, saying: The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, fortified to the heavens. We also saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’