Numbers 13 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Yahweh spoke to Moses:

"Send men to scout out the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each ancestral tribe."

So Moses sent them out from the Paran wilderness, as Yahweh had commanded. All of them were leaders among the Israelites.

Here are their names: From the tribe of Reuben — Shammua son of Zaccur.

From the tribe of Simeon — Shaphat son of Hori.

From the tribe of Judah — Caleb son of Jephunneh.

From the tribe of Issachar — Igal son of Joseph.

From the tribe of Ephraim — Hoshea son of Nun.

From the tribe of Benjamin — Palti son of Raphu.

From the tribe of Zebulun — Gaddiel son of Sodi.

From the tribe of Joseph (that is, the tribe of Manasseh) — Gaddi son of Susi.

From the tribe of Dan — Ammiel son of Gemalli.

From the tribe of Asher — Sethur son of Michael.

From the tribe of Naphtali — Nahbi son of Vophsi.

From the tribe of Gad — Geuel son of Maki.

These are the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land. And Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun a new name: Joshua.

When Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan, he told them, "Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country.

See what the land is like, and whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many.

Is the land they live in good or bad? Are the towns they live in open camps or fortified cities?

Is the soil rich or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Be bold and bring back some of the land's fruit." (It was the season when the first grapes ripen.)

So they went up and scouted the land from the Zin wilderness all the way to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath.

They went up through the Negev and arrived at Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai — descendants of Anak — were living. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

When they reached the Eshkol Valley, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes so large that two men had to carry it on a pole between them. They also brought back pomegranates and figs.

That place was called the Eshkol Valley because of the cluster the Israelites cut down there.

After forty days, they returned from scouting out the land.

They came back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Paran wilderness. They gave their report to the whole community and showed them the fruit from the land.

They told Moses, "We went into the land where you sent us, and it really does overflow with milk and honey! Here's the fruit to prove it.

But the people living there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and huge. On top of that, we saw descendants of Anak there.

The Amalekites live in the Negev. The Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. And the Canaanites live along the coast and along the Jordan River."

But Caleb quieted the people standing before Moses and said, "We should go up right now and take possession of it — we can absolutely do this!"

But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people — they're stronger than we are."

So they spread a demoralizing report among the Israelites about the land they had scouted. "The land we explored devours anyone who tries to live there," they said. "And all the people we saw were enormous.

We even saw the Nephilim there — the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim. We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and that's how they saw us too."