¹ Then we went back, journeying into the waste land by the way to the Red Sea, as the Lord had said to me: and we were a long time going round Mount Seir.

² And the Lord said to me,

³ You have been journeying round this mountain long enough: now go to the north;

⁴ And give the people orders, saying, You are about to go through the land of your brothers, the children of Esau, who are living in Seir; and they will have fear of you; so take care what you do:

⁵ Make no attack on them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even space enough for a man's foot: because I have given Mount Seir to Esau for his heritage.

⁶ You may get food for your needs from them for a price, and water for drinking.

⁷ For the blessing of the Lord your God has been on you in all the work of your hands: he has knowledge of your wanderings through this great waste: these forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have been short of nothing.

⁸ So we went on past our brothers, the children of Esau, living in Seir, by the road through the Arabah, from Elath and Ezion-geber. And turning, we went by the road through the waste land of Moab.

⁹ And the Lord said to me, Make no attack on Moab and do not go to war with them, for I will not give you any of his land: because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for their heritage.

¹⁰ (In the past the Emim were living there; a great people, equal in numbers to the Anakim and as tall;

¹¹ They are numbered among the Rephaim, like the Anakim; but are named Emim by the Moabites.

¹² And the Horites in earlier times were living in Seir, but the children of Esau took their place; they sent destruction on them and took their land for themselves, as Israel did to the land of his heritage which the Lord gave them.)

¹³ Get up now, and go over the stream Zered. So we went over the stream Zered.

¹⁴ Thirty-eight years had gone by from the time when we came away from Kadesh-barnea till we went over the stream Zered; by that time all the generation of the men of war among us were dead, as the Lord had said.

¹⁵ For the hand of the Lord was against them, working their destruction, till all were dead.

¹⁶ So when death had overtaken all the men of war among the people,

¹⁷ The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸ You are about to go by Ar, the limit of the country of Moab;

¹⁹ And when you come near the land of the children of Ammon, give them no cause of trouble and do not make war on them, for I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon for your heritage: because I have given it to the children of Lot.

²⁰ (That land is said to have been a land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim had been living there in earlier times, but they were named Zamzummim by the Ammonites;

²¹ They were a great people, tall as the Anakim, and equal to them in number; but the Lord sent destruction on them and the children of Ammon took their place, living in their land;

²² As he did for the children of Esau living in Seir, when he sent destruction on the Horites before them, and they took their land where they are living to this day:

²³ And the Avvim, living in the small towns as far as Gaza, came to destruction by the hands of the Caphtorim who came out from Caphtor and took their land.)

²⁴ Get up now, and go on your journey, crossing over the valley of the Arnon: see, I have given into your hands Sihon, the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and all his land: go forward to make it yours, and make war on him,

²⁵ From now on I will put the fear of you in all peoples under heaven, who, hearing of you, will be shaking with fear and grief of heart because of you.

²⁶ Then from the waste land of Kedemoth I sent representatives to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,

²⁷ Let me go through your land: I will keep to the highway, not turning to the right or to the left;

²⁸ Let me have food, at a price, for my needs, and water for drinking: only let me go through on foot;

²⁹ As the children of Esau did for me in Seir and the Moabites in Ar; till I have gone over Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.

³⁰ But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us go through; for the Lord your God made his spirit hard and his heart strong, so that he might give him up into your hands as at this day.

³¹ And the Lord said to me, See, from now on I have given Sihon and his land into your hands: go forward now to take his land and make it yours.

³² Then Sihon came out against us with all his people, to make an attack on us at Jahaz.

³³ And the Lord our God gave him into our hands; and we overcame him and his sons and all his people.

³⁴ At that time we took all his towns, and gave them over to complete destruction, together with men, women, and children; we had no mercy on any:

³⁵ Only the cattle we took for ourselves, with the goods from the towns we had taken.

³⁶ From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon and from the town in the valley as far as Gilead, no town was strong enough to keep us out; the Lord our God gave them all into our hands:

³⁷ But you did not go near the land of the children of Ammon, that is, all the side of the river Jabbok or the towns of the hill-country, wherever the Lord our God had said we were not to go.

¹ Give ear, O Israel: today you are to go over Jordan, to take the heritage of nations greater and stronger than yourselves, and towns of great size with walls as high as heaven;

² A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, of whom you have knowledge and of whom it has been said, All are forced to give way before the sons of Anak.

³ Be certain then today that it is the Lord your God who goes over before you like an all-burning fire; he will send destruction on them, crushing them before you; and you will send them in flight, putting an end to them quickly, as the Lord has said.

⁴ And after the Lord has sent them in flight from before you, say not in your heart, Because of my righteousness the Lord has given me this land; when it is because of their evil-doing that the Lord is driving these nations out before you.

⁵ Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to his oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁶ Be certain then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land as a reward for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.

⁷ Keep well in mind how you made the Lord your God angry in the waste land; from the day when you went out of Egypt till you came to this place, you have gone against the orders of the Lord.

⁸ Again in Horeb you made the Lord angry, and in his wrath he would have put an end to you.

⁹ When I had gone up into the mountain to be given the stones on which was recorded the agreement which the Lord made with you, I was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without taking food or drinking water.

¹⁰ And the Lord gave me the two stones with writing on them done by the finger of God: on them were recorded all the words which the Lord said to you on the mountain out of the heart of the fire, on the day of the great meeting.

¹¹ Then at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me those stones, the stones of the agreement.

¹² And the Lord said to me, Get up now, and go down quickly from this place; for the people you have taken out of Egypt have given themselves over to evil; they have quickly been turned from the way in which I gave them orders to go; they have made themselves a metal image.

¹³ And then the Lord said to me, I have seen that this people is stiff-necked:

¹⁴ Let me send destruction on them till their very name is cut off; and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.

¹⁵ So turning round I came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two stones of the agreement were in my hands.

¹⁶ And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go.

¹⁷ And I let the stones go from my hands, and they were broken before your eyes.

¹⁸ And I went down on my face before the Lord, as at the first, for forty days and forty nights, without taking food or drinking water, because of all your sin, in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and moving him to wrath.

¹⁹ For I was full of fear because of the wrath of the Lord which was burning against you, with your destruction in view. But again the Lord's ear was open to my prayer.

²⁰ And the Lord, in his wrath, would have put Aaron to death: and I made prayer for Aaron at the same time.

²¹ And I took your sin, the image which you had made, and put it in the fire and had it hammered and crushed very small till it was only dust: and the dust I put in the stream flowing down from the mountain.

²² Again at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you made the Lord angry.

²³ And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and take the land which I have given you; you went against the orders of the Lord your God, and had no faith in him, and would not give ear to his voice.

²⁴ From the day when I first had knowledge of you, you have gone against the word of the Lord.

²⁵ So I went down on my face in prayer before the Lord for forty days and forty nights as I did at first; because the Lord had said that he would put an end to you.

²⁶ And I made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord God, do not send destruction on your people and your heritage, to whom, by your great power, you have given salvation, whom you have taken out of Egypt by the strength of your hand.

²⁷ Keep in mind your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not looking at the hard heart of this people, or their evil-doing and their sin:

²⁸ Or it may be said in the land from which you have taken them, Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land which he said he would give them, and because of his hate for them, he has taken them out to put them to death in the waste land.

²⁹ But still they are your people and your heritage, whom you took out by your great power and by your stretched-out arm.