15. So I took the principals of your tribes, wise men and experts, and made them princes over you, princes over thousands and princes over hundreds and princes over fifties and princes over tens and officers among your tribes.
16. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren and judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that is with him.
17. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s; and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.
18. And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do.
19. And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorite, as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadeshbarnea.
20. Then I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorite, which the Lord our God gives unto us.
21. Behold, the Lord thy God has given the land before thee; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers has said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged.
22. And ye came near unto me every one of you and said, We will send men before us, and they shall spy us out the land and bring us word again by what way we must go up and into what cities we shall come.
23. And the saying seemed good unto me, and I took twelve men of you, one of each tribe.
24. And they turned and went up into the mountain and came unto the valley of Eshcol and spied out the land.
25. And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down unto us and brought us word again and said, It is a good land which the Lord our God gives us.
26. Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God;
27. and ye murmured in your tents and said, Because the Lord hated us, he has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorite, to destroy us.
28. Where shall we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, This people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.
29. Then I said unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them.
30. The Lord your God who goes before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did with you in Egypt before your eyes;
31. and in the wilderness thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bore thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went until ye came into this place.