"Many years had now passed since the children of Israel had sent the ten spies and had been told that they could not enter the Promised Land until all the full grown men of that day should have died. During these years almost all of that generation who had been afraid to go up into the land had died and their sons and daughters, who, at that time, had been children, or had not yet even been born, had now grown up to manhood. And they were a very different generation from what their fathers had been. In the first place they were different in appearance. Their fathers, who in youth had been slaves to Pharaoh, had grown up with backs bent by the burdens they had to carry. Many of them had been permanently weakened and even deformed by the hard treatment they had received in Egypt. But their children, who had grown up in the wilderness and had lived all their lives out of doors, with plenty of fresh air and healthful exercise, and with no one to make them work at labor that was too hard for them, grew up straight and sturdy, broad-shouldered and muscular, like well-trained athletes. They were as different in appearance as a poor peddler whom you may see carrying his pack on his shoulders is from the strong and vigorous farm hand. "Nor did they differ in appearance only, but also in character. Slavery had made cowards of their fathers. The slightest act of disobedience to the task-masters bringing instant punishment, they had learned to fear every enemy. No doubt their fathers had been warned in childhood never to attack an Egyptian no matter what he did, because they would in the end have to suffer for it. And so their fathers had become accustomed to thinking of themselves as too weak to fight and when they saw the Canaanite warriors they said, 'We are like grasshoppers compared to them.' But their sons who had grown up in the wilderness did not know the meaning of fear. They were used to hardship and dangers, for the wilderness was beset by all manner of wild beasts and wild men also, and this had trained them to be brave. Moreover they saw from childhood up how God at every step helped His people, how He helped them at the Red Sea, how He fed them on Manna, etc., and they said to themselves, 'Since God is with us, we need not fear, what can man do unto us.'" You are now in a position to tell of the campaigns against Sihon and Og, stressing the overtures of peace, the rejection of which justified the invasion, and enlarging on the Israelites' sense of triumph which resulted from their victories, in which they saw the beginning of the realization of God's promise to give them the land of Canaan. This is a good point in the narrative at which to trace the route of Israel's marches through the wilderness and to locate the important places on the map.