Page:History of Moses.pdf/19

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were the fruits they found in this fertile valley of Eshcol, that they cut down there a bunch of grapes so large that two men were obliged to carry it between them on a stick: they took also of the pomegranates and the figs. After forty days spent in searching the land, they went back to Moses and Aaron, and all the people, and shewed them the fruit of the land; and they told them that such were the fruits of the land of Canaan, and that it was certainly a land flowing with milk and honey; but in other respects these men gave a very evil account of the land itself, and a very frightful one of the people that dwelt there, whom they called giants; saying, "That by the side of them they seemed to themselves as grasshoppers." But two of the children of Israel, named Caleb and Joshua, who were of the twelve who had been sent into the land, declared unto all the people that what the others had told them was not true. But the people would not listen to Caleb and Joshua, or believe what they said; for their hearts were exceedingly perverse towards God. And the anger of the Lord was exceeding great against the children of Israel: and because they had acted in this wicked manner, God said they should not see the land which he had promised them; no, not one of them should enter that land, excepting his servants Caleb and Joshua; but that the rest of the people should die in the wilderness, and that their children should wander here, until all those who had now and so often before sinned against the Lord had died and were buried. Then God said to this wicked people, "Turn you, and get you into the wilderness, by the way of the Red Sea." Now Moses told these sayings to the people of Israel, and they murmured greatly.