22. Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.”
23. The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe.
24. They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshkol and explored it.
25. Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”
26. But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.
27. You grumbled in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.
28. Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’ ”