26Two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad, had remained in camp; yet the spirit rested upon them—they were among those recorded, but they had not gone out to the Tent—and they f-spoke in ecstasy-f in the camp. 27A youth ran out and told Moses, saying, “Eldad and Medad are acting the prophet in the camp!” 28And Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ attendant from his youth, spoke up and said, “My lord Moses, restrain them!” 29But Moses said to him, “Are you wrought up on my account? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD put His spirit upon them!” 30Moses then reentered the camp together with the elders of Israel.
31A wind from the LORD started up, swept quail from the sea and strewed them over the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and about a day’s journey on that side, all around the camp, and some two cubits deep on the ground. 32The people set to gathering quail all that day and night and all the next day—even he who gathered least had ten homers— and they spread them out all around the camp. 33The meat was still between their teeth, nor yet chewed,g when the anger of the LORD blazed forth against the people and the LORD struck the people with a very severe plague. 34That place was named Kibroth-hattaavah,h because the people who had the craving were buried there.
35Then the people set out from Kibroth-hattaavah for Hazeroth.
12 When they were in Hazeroth, 1Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a Cushite woman!”
2They said, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” The LORD heard it. 3Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth. 4Suddenly the LORD called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three of them went out. 5The LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron and Miriam!” The two of them came forward; 6and He said, “Hear these My words: a-When a prophet of the LORD arises among you, I-amake Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. 7Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household. 8With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of the LORD. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!” 9Still incensed with them, the LORD departed.
10As the cloud withdrew from the Tent, there was Miriam stricken with snow-white scales!b When Aaron turned toward Miriam, he saw that she was stricken with scales. 11And Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly. 12Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away.” 13So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “O God, pray heal her!”
14But the LORD said to Moses, “If her father spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of camp for seven days, and then let her be readmitted.” 15So Miriam was shut out of camp seven days; and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted. 16After that the people set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.
13 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people; send one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a chieftain among them.” 3So Moses, by the LORD’s command, sent them out from the wilderness of Paran, all the men being leaders of the Israelites. 4And these were their names:
From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur.
5From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori.
6From the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh.
7From the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph.
8From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoseaa son of Nun.
9From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Rafu.
10From the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi.
11From the tribe of Joseph, namely, the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi.
12From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli.
13From the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael.
14From the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi.
15From the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.
16Those were the names of the men whom Moses sent to scout the land; but Moses changed the name of Hoseaa son of Nun to Joshua.
17When Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the Negeb and on into the hill country, 18and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? 19Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? 20Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”— Now it happened to be the season of the first ripe grapes.
21They went up and scouted the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at Lebo-hamath.b 22They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron, where lived Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites.—Now Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan of Egypt.—23They reached the wadi Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes—it had to be borne on a carrying frame by two of them—and some pomegranates and figs. 24That place was named the wadi Eshcolc because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down there.
25At the end of forty days they returned from scouting the land. 26They went straight to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran, and they made their report to them and to the whole community, as they showed them the fruit of the land. 27This is what they told him: “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the Anakites there.
29Amalekites dwell in the Negeb region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan.”
30Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.”
31But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” 32Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size; 33we saw the Nephilimd there— the Anakites are part of the Nephilim—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
14 The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. 2All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness! 3Why is the LORD taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” 4And they said to one another, “Let us a-head back for-a Egypt.”
5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembled congregation of the Israelites. 6And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of those who had scouted the land, rent their clothes 7and exhorted the whole Israelite community: “The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. 8If the LORD is pleased with us, He will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us; 9only you must not rebel against the LORD. Have no fear then of the people of the country, for they are our prey:b their protection has departed from them, but the LORD is with us. Have no fear of them!” 10As the whole community threatened to pelt them with stones, the Presence of the LORD appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites.
11And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst? 12I will strike them with pestilence and disown them, and I will make of you a nation far more numerous than they!” 13But Moses said to the LORD, “When the Egyptians, from whose midst You brought up this people in Your might, hear the news, 14they will tell it to the inhabitants of that land. Now they have heard that You, O LORD, are in the midst of this people; that You, O LORD, appear in plain sight when Your cloud rests over them and when You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15If then You
