The Bible in Basic English BBE
Good News Translation GNT
1 And the Lord said to Moses,
1
The Lord said to Moses,
2 Send men to get knowledge about the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from every tribe of their fathers you are to send a man, every one a chief among them.
2
"Choose one of the leaders from each of the twelve tribes and send them as spies to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites."
3 And Moses sent them from the waste land of Paran as the Lord gave orders, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.
3
Moses obeyed and from the wilderness of Paran he sent out leaders, as follows:
4 And these were their names: of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua, the son of Zaccur.
5 Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat, the son of Hori.
6 Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.
7 Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal, the son of Joseph.
8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea, the son of Nun.
9 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti, the son of Raphu.
10 Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel, the son of Sodi.
11 Of the tribe of Joseph, that is of the family of Manasseh, Gaddi, the son of Susi.
12 Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel, the son of Gemalli.
13 Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur, the son of Michael
14 Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi, the son of Vophsi.
15 Of the tribe of Gad, Gevel, the son of Machi.
16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to get knowledge about the land. And Moses gave to Hoshea, the son of Nun, the name of Joshua.
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These are the spies Moses sent to explore the land. He changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Joshua.
17 So Moses sent them to have a look at the land of Canaan, and said to them, Go up into the South and into the hill-country;
17
When Moses sent them out, he said to them, "Go north from here into the southern part of the land of Canaan and then on into the hill country.
18 And see what the land is like; and if the people living in it are strong or feeble, small or great in number;
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Find out what kind of country it is, how many people live there, and how strong they are.
19 And what sort of land they are living in, if it is good or bad; and what their living-places are, tent-circles or walled towns;
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Find out whether the land is good or bad and whether the people live in open towns or in fortified cities.
20 And if the land is fertile or poor, and if there is wood in it or not. And be of good heart, and come back with some of the produce of the land. Now it was the time when the first grapes were ready.
20
Find out whether the soil is fertile and whether the land is wooded. And be sure to bring back some of the fruit that grows there." (It was the season when grapes were beginning to ripen.)
21 So they went up and got a view of the land, from the waste land of Zin to Rehob, on the way to Hamath.
21
So the men went north and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin in the south all the way to Rehob, near Hamath Pass in the north.
22 They went up into the South and came to Hebron; and Ahiman and Sheshai and Talmai, the children of Anak, were living there. (Now the building of Hebron took place seven years before that of Zoan in Egypt.)
22
They went first into the southern part of the land and came to Hebron, where the clans of Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of a race of giants called the Anakim, lived. (Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23 And they came to the valley of Eshcol, and cutting down a vine-branch with its grapes, two of them took it on a rod between them; and they took some pomegranates and figs.
23
They came to Eshcol Valley, and there they cut off a branch which had one bunch of grapes on it so heavy that it took two men to carry it on a pole between them. They also brought back some pomegranates and figs
24 That place was named the valley of Eshcol because of the grapes which the children of Israel took from there.
24
(That place was named Eshcol Valley because of the bunch of grapes the Israelites cut off there.)
25 At the end of forty days they came back from viewing the land.
25
After exploring the land for forty days, the spies returned
26 And they came back to Moses and Aaron and all the children of Israel, to Kadesh in the waste land of Paran; and gave an account to them and to all the people and let them see the produce of the land.
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to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had brought.
27 And they said, We came to the land where you sent us, and truly it is flowing with milk and honey: and here is some of the produce of it.
27
They told Moses, "We explored the land and found it to be rich and fertile; and here is some of its fruit.
28 But the people living in the land are strong, and the towns are walled and very great; further, we saw the children of Anak there.
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But the people who live there are powerful, and their cities are very large and well fortified. Even worse, we saw the descendants of the giants there.
29 And the Amalekites are in the South; and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill-country; and the Canaanites by the sea and by the side of Jordan.
29
Amalekites live in the southern part of the land; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and Canaanites live by the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan River."
30 Then Caleb made signs to the people to keep quiet, and said to Moses, Let us go up straight away and take this land; for we are well able to overcome it.
30
Caleb silenced the people who were complaining against Moses, and said, "We should attack now and take the land; we are strong enough to conquer it."
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.
31
But the men who had gone with Caleb said, "No, we are not strong enough to attack them; the people there are more powerful than we are."
32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad account of the land they had been to see, saying, This land through which we went is a land causing destruction to those living in it; and all the people we saw there are men of more than common size.
32
So they spread a false report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, "That land doesn't even produce enough to feed the people who live there. Everyone we saw was very tall,
33 There we saw those great men, the sons of Anak, offspring of the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves no more than insects, and so we seemed to them.
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and we even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must have looked to them."
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.