The Wilderness Years

Give for yourselves men, wise and intelligent, and known to your tribes, and I set them for your heads;

and ye answer me and say, Good is the thing which thou hast spoken--to do.

`And I take the heads of your tribes, men, wise and known, and I appoint them heads over you, princes of thousands, and princes of hundreds, and princes of fifties, and princes of tens, and authorities, for your tribes.

And I command your judges at that time, saying, Hearkening between your brethren--then ye have judged righteousness between a man, and his brother, and his sojourner;

ye do not discern faces in judgment; as the little so the great ye do hear; ye are not afraid of the face of any, for the judgment is God's, and the thing which is too hard for you, ye bring near unto me, and I have heard it;

and I command you, at that time, all the things which ye do.

`And we journey from Horeb, and go through all that great and fearful wilderness which ye have seen--the way of the hill-country of the Amorite, as Jehovah our God hath commanded us, and we come in unto Kadesh-Barnea.

`And I say unto you, Ye have come in unto the hill-country of the Amorite, which Jehovah our God is giving to us;

see, Jehovah thy God hath set before thee the land; go up, possess, as Jehovah, God of thy fathers, hath spoken to thee; fear not, nor be affrighted.

`And ye come near unto me, all of you, and say, Let us send men before us, and they search for us the land, and they bring us back word concerning the way in which we go up into it, and the cities unto which we come in;

and the thing is good in mine eyes, and I take of you twelve men, one man for a tribe.

`And they turn and go up to the hill-country, and come in unto the valley of Eshcol, and spy it,

and they take with their hand of the fruit of the land, and bring down unto us, and bring us back word, and say, Good is the land which Jehovah our God is giving to us.

`And ye have not been willing to go up, and ye provoke the mouth of Jehovah your God,

and murmur in your tents, and say, In Jehovah's hating us He hath brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorite--to destroy us;

whither are we going up? our brethren have melted our heart, saying, A people greater and taller than we, cities great and fenced to heaven, and also sons of Anakim--we have seen there.

`And I say unto you, Be not terrified, nor be afraid of them;

Jehovah your God, who is going before you--He doth fight for you, according to all that He hath done with you in Egypt before your eyes,

and in the wilderness, where thou hast seen that Jehovah thy God hath borne thee as a man beareth his son, in all the way which ye have gone, till your coming in unto this place.

`And in this thing ye are not stedfast in Jehovah your God,

who is going before you in the way to search out to you a place for your encamping, in fire by night, to shew you in the way in which ye go, and in a cloud by day.

`And Jehovah heareth the voice of your words, and is wroth, and sweareth, saying,

Not one of these men of this evil generation doth see the good land which I have sworn to give to your fathers,

save Caleb son of Jephunneh--he doth see it, and to him I give the land on which he hath trodden, and to his sons, because that he hath been fully after Jehovah.

`Also with me hath Jehovah been angry for your sake, saying, Also, thou dost not go in thither;