12. How can I alone bear your encumbrance, and your burden, and your strife?
13. Take ye wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.
14. And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.
15. So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.
16. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.
17. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.
18. And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do.
19. And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
20. And I said to you, Ye have come to the mountain of the Amorites, which the LORD our God doth give to us.
21. Behold, the LORD thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath said to thee; fear not, neither be discouraged.
22. And ye came near to me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall explore the land for us, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come.
23. And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe:
24. And they turned and ascended the mountain, and came to the valley of Eshcol, and explored it.
25. And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us.
26. Notwithstanding, ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God:
27. And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth from the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
28. Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.
29. Then I said to you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them.