8. Look, I am giving you this land. Go and take it. It is the land that I, the Lord, promised to give to your ancestors—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I promised to give this land to them and to their descendants.’
9. “At that time I told you, ‘I can’t take care of you by myself.
10. And now, there are even more of you. The Lord your God has added more and more people, so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky.
11. May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, give you 1000 times more people than you are now! May he bless you as he promised.
12. But I cannot take care of you and solve all your arguments by myself.
13. So choose some men from each tribe, and I will make them leaders over you. Choose wise men with experience who understand people.’
14. “And you said, ‘That is a good thing to do.’
15. “So I took the wise, experienced men you chose from your tribes, and I made them your leaders. In this way I gave you leaders over 1000 people, over 100 people, over 50 people, and over 10 people. I also gave you officers for each of your tribes.
16. “At that time I told these judges, ‘Listen to the arguments between your people. Be fair when you judge each case. It doesn’t matter if the problem is between two Israelites or between an Israelite and a foreigner. You must judge each case fairly.
17. You must treat everyone the same when you judge. You must listen carefully to everyone—whether they are important or not. Don’t be afraid of anyone, because your decision is from God. But if there is a case too hard for you to judge, bring it to me and I will judge it.’
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.’