Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy

¹These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan, toward the west, near the Red Sea, between Paran, Tophel, Lobon, Aulon, and Zekrisya. ²It is a ten days' journey from Horeb by the road of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. ³In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses told all the children of Israel everything the LORD had commanded him to tell them. ⁴This was after they had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei, beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab. ⁵Moses began to explain this law, saying: ⁶"The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, 'You have stayed at this mountain long enough. ⁷Get up now, set out, and go into the hill country of the Amorites and to all the settlements of the Arabah: the hills, the lowland, the south, and the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and the Anti-Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. ⁸Look, I have given you the land that is before you, the land I swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them, a land flowing with milk and honey.' ⁹"At that time I said to you, 'I cannot carry you by myself. ¹⁰The LORD our God has multiplied us, and look, today you are as many as the stars of the sky. ¹¹May the LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times more numerous and bless you, as he promised you. ¹²How can I alone carry your troubles, your burdens, and your quarrels? ¹³Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, and experienced men from each of your tribes, and I will appoint them as your leaders.' ¹⁴You answered me and said, 'What you have said is good. Do it.' ¹⁵So I took from among you wise, experienced, and understanding men and set them over you as commanders, rulers, leaders of the people, elders, and scribes for your officials. ¹⁶At that time I told them, 'Hear the cases between your brothers and judge rightly between a man and his brother, and between him and the foreigner. ¹⁷Do not show partiality in judgment. Judge the small and the great alike, and do not be swayed by anyone, for judgment belongs to God. If any matter is too hard for you, bring it to me and I will hear it.' ¹⁸At that time I commanded you everything you were to do. ¹⁹"We set out from Horeb and traveled through all that great and terrible wilderness that you saw, along the road to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us, and we came to Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰Then I said to you, 'You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD your God is giving you. ²¹See, the LORD your God has given you this land before you. Go up now and take possession of it, as the LORD, the God of our fathers, told them. Do not be afraid and do not lose heart.' ²²Then all of you came to me and said, 'Let us send men ahead of us to look over the land for us and bring us word about the road we should go up by and the cities we will enter.' ²³The idea pleased me, and I took twelve men from among you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴They turned and went up into the hill country, came to the Valley of the Cluster, and looked it over. ²⁵They took some of the fruit of the land with them and brought it to us, and said, 'The land the LORD our God is giving us is good.' ²⁶But you refused to go up, and you rebelled against the word of the LORD your God. ²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, he brought us out of the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us. ²⁸Where can we go up now? Our brothers have made our hearts lose courage. They told us, "The people are great and numerous and stronger than we are. Their cities are large and walled up to the sky, and we even saw the sons of the giants there."' ²⁹Then I said to you, 'Do not be afraid or dismayed because of them. ³⁰The LORD your God is the one who fights alongside you. He goes ahead of you, just as he did everything for you in the land of Egypt, ³¹and in this wilderness, where you saw how the LORD your God cared for you as a man cares for his son, all along the way you traveled until you reached this place.' ³²Yet in this matter you did not trust the LORD your God, ³³who goes ahead of you on the way to choose a place for you, leading you by fire at night to show you the road to take, and by a cloud during the day. ³⁴"The Lord GOD heard what you said, and he became angry and swore an oath: ³⁵'Not one of these men will see the good land that I swore to their fathers, ³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his children the land he walked on, because his heart was set on the LORD.' ³⁷The LORD was angry with me too because of you, and he said to me, 'You also will not enter there. ³⁸Joshua son of Nun, who serves you, will enter there. Strengthen him, for he will lead Israel to inherit that land. ³⁹And your children, who you said would be taken as plunder, and every little child who today does not know good from evil, they will enter there. I will give it to them, and they will possess it. ⁴⁰But as for you, turn around and set out into the wilderness by the road to the Red Sea.' ⁴¹Then you answered me, 'We have sinned before the LORD our God. We will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.' Each of you took up his weapons of war and went up into the hill country. ⁴²But the LORD said to me, 'Tell them: Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not with you, and you will be crushed before your enemies.' ⁴³So I told you, but you would not listen to me. You defied the word of the LORD, acted arrogantly, and went up into the hill country. ⁴⁴Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out to meet you. They chased you, drove you back, and stung you like bees, and they struck you down from Seir to Hormah. ⁴⁵You sat and wept before the LORD, but he did not listen to your voice or pay attention to you. ⁴⁶So you stayed in Kadesh many days, as long as you had stayed there before.