Numbers 13:1-25

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Spies Sent into Canaan

13 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”^{(A) 3} So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them leading men among the Israelites. ⁴ These were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; ⁵ from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; ⁶ from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; ⁷ from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; ⁸ from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;^{(B) 9} from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; ¹⁰ from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; ¹¹ from the tribe of Joseph (that is, from the tribe of Manasseh), Gaddi son of Susi; ¹² from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; ¹³ from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; ¹⁴ from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi; ¹⁵ from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. ¹⁶ These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Joshua.^(C)

¹⁷ Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country,^{(D) 18} and see what the land is like and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, ¹⁹ and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns that they live in are unwalled or fortified, ²⁰ and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the season of the first ripe grapes.^(E)

²¹ So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. ²² They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron, and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)^{(F) 23} And they came to the Wadi Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them. They also brought some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴ That place was called the Wadi Eshcol^[a] because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down from there.

The Report of the Spies

²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.