Study Desk

And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit who is on you and put that Spirit upon them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.

But Moses replied, "Here I am among 600,000 men on foot, yet You say, 'I will give them meat, and they will eat for a month.'

If flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?"

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and He took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and placed that Spirit on the seventy elders. As the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied-but they never did so again.

Two men, however, had remained in the camp-one named Eldad and the other Medad-and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the tent, and they prophesied in the camp.

All that day and night, and all the next day, the people stayed up gathering the quail. No one gathered less than ten homers, and they spread them out all around the camp.

"Does the LORD speak only through Moses?" they said. "Does He not also speak through us?" And the LORD heard this.

So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.

They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, dwelled. It had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which they carried on a pole between two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs.

and they went back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

And they gave this account to Moses: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land they had spied out: "The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature.

So they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt."

Only do not rebel against the LORD, and do not be afraid of the people of the land, for they will be like bread for us. Their protection has been removed, and the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them!"

And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?

I will strike them with a plague and destroy them-and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are."

And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have already heard that You, O LORD, are in the midst of this people, that You, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected-and they will enjoy it.

Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lie scattered in the wilderness.