18. See what the land is like and whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many.
19. Is the land they live in good or bad? Do their cities have walls around them or not?
20. Is the soil rich or poor? Does the land have trees or not? Do your best to bring back some fruit from the land.” (It was the season when grapes were beginning to ripen.)
21. So the men explored the land from the Desert of Zin to the border of Hamath.
22. They went through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai lived. They are descendants of Anak. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23. When they came to the Eshcol Valley, they cut off a branch with only one bunch of grapes on it. They carried it on a pole between two of them. They also brought some pomegranates and figs.
24. So they called that valley Eshcol [Bunch of Grapes] because of the bunch of grapes the Israelites cut off there.
25. Forty days later, they came back from exploring the land.
26. They came back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. They gave their report and showed them the fruit from the land.
27. This is what they reported to Moses: “We went to the land where you sent us. It really is a land flowing with milk and honey. Here’s some of its fruit.
28. But the people who live there are strong, and the cities have walls and are very large. We even saw the descendants of Anak there.
29. The Amalekites live in the Negev. The Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the mountain region. And the Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and all along the Jordan River.”
30. Caleb told the people to be quiet and listen to Moses. Caleb said, “Let’s go now and take possession of the land. We should be more than able to conquer it.”
31. But the men who had gone with him said, “We can’t attack those people! They’re too strong for us!”
32. So they began to spread lies among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored is one that devours those who live there. All the people we saw there are very tall.
33. We saw Nephilim there. (The descendants of Anak are Nephilim.) We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that’s how we must have looked to them.”