13. ‘Choose men, wise and understanding, and known to your tribes, and let me appoint them as your heads.’
14. “And you answered me and said, ‘The word which you have spoken to us to do is good.’
15. “And I took the heads of your tribes, wise men and known, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, and leaders of hundreds, and leaders of fifties, and leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes.
16. “And I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘When hearing between your brothers, judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him.
17. ‘Do not show partiality in right-ruling, hear the small as well as the great. Do not be afraid of anyone’s face, for the right-ruling belongs to Elohim. And the case which is too hard for you, bring it to me, and I shall hear it.’
18. “And I commanded you at that time all the words which you should do.
19. “Then we set out from Ḥorĕḇ, and went through all that great and awesome wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as יהוה our Elohim had commanded us. And we came to Qaḏĕsh Barnĕa.
20. “And I said to you, ‘You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which יהוה our Elohim is giving us.
21. ‘See, יהוה your Elohim has set the land before you. Go up and possess it, as יהוה Elohim of your fathers has spoken to you. Do not fear, nor be discouraged.’
22. “And all of you came near to me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we would come.’
23. “And the matter was good in my eyes, so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe.
24. “And they turned and went up into the mountains, and came to the wadi Eshkol, and spied it out.
25. “And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us. And they brought back word to us, saying, ‘The land which יהוה our Elohim is giving us is good.’
26. “But you would not go up and rebelled against the mouth of יהוה your Elohim,
27. and grumbled in your tents, and said, ‘Because יהוה was hating us, He has brought us out of the land of Mitsrayim to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.