18. At that same time I also told you everything you must do.
19. “So we obeyed the Lord our God. We left Mount Horeb and went to the hill country of the Amorites. You remember that big, terrible desert that we walked through. We came as far as Kadesh Barnea.
20. Then I said to you, ‘You have now come to the hill country of the Amorites. The Lord our God will give us this country.
21. Look, there it is! Go up and take the land for your own. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you to do this, so don’t be afraid or worry about anything.’
22. “But all of you came to me and said, ‘Let’s send some men to look at the land first. They can spy out the land and come back and tell us the way we should go and which cities we will come to.’
23. “I thought that was a good idea. So I chose twelve men from among you, one man from each tribe.
24. Then they left and went up to the hill country. They came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it.
25. They took some of the fruit from that land and brought it back to us. They told us about the land and said, ‘The Lord our God is giving us a good land.’
26. “But you refused to go into the land. You refused to obey the Lord your God.
27. You went to your tents and began to complain. You said, ‘The Lord hates us! He brought us out of the land of Egypt just to let the Amorites destroy us.
28. Where can we go now? The men we sent have frightened us with their report. They said, “The people there are bigger and taller than we are. The cities are big and have walls as high as the sky. And we saw giants there!”’