8. That is just what your ancestors did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to reconnoiter the land.
9. They went up to the Wadi Eshcol and reconnoitered the land, then so discouraged the Israelites that they would not enter the land the Lord had given them.
10. At that time the anger of the Lord flared up, and he swore:
11. None of the men twenty years old or more who have come up from Egypt will see the land I promised under oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, because they have not followed me unreservedly—
12. except the Kenizzite Caleb, son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua, son of Nun, since they have followed the Lord unreservedly.
13. So the anger of the Lord flared up against the Israelites and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord had disappeared.
14. And now here you are, offspring of sinful stock, rising up in your ancestors’ place to add still more to the Lord’s blazing anger against the Israelites.
15. If you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will bring about the ruin of this entire people.”
16. But they approached him and said: “We will only build sheepfolds here for our flocks and towns for our families;
17. but we ourselves will march as troops in the vanguard before the Israelites, until we have led them to their destination. Meanwhile our families will remain in the fortified towns because of the land’s inhabitants.
18. We will not return to our homes until all the Israelites have taken possession of their heritage.
19. But we will not claim any heritage with them across the Jordan and beyond, because we have received a heritage for ourselves on the eastern side of the Jordan.”
20. Moses said to them in reply: “If you do this—if you march as troops before the Lord into battle