Deuteronomy 1:21–31

²¹See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”

²²Then all of you approached me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us to search out the land and bring us word of what route to follow and which cities to enter.”

²³The plan seemed good to me, so I selected twelve men from among you, one from each tribe. ²⁴They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied out the land. ²⁵They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us word: “It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.”

²⁶But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. ²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, “Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be annihilated. ²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”

²⁹So I said to you: “Do not be terrified or afraid of them! ³⁰The LORD your God, who goes before you, will fight for you, just as you saw Him do for you in Egypt ³¹and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.”