The Great Day of the Lord

4 ^[a]See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.^(A)

The Consequences of Rebelling against God

9 “Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today, to go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities, fortified to the heavens,^{(A) 2} a strong and tall people, the offspring of the Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said, ‘Who can stand up to the Anakim?’^{(B) 3} Know, then, today that the Lord your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.^(C)

¹¹ (Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. In fact, his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide.)^(A)

²⁴ ‘Proceed on your journey and cross the Wadi Arnon. See, I have handed over to you King Sihon the Amorite of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession by engaging him in battle.^{(A) 25} This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under heaven; when they hear report of you, they will tremble and be in anguish because of you.’^(B)

Defeat of King Sihon

²⁶ “So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to King Sihon of Heshbon with the following terms of peace:^{(C) 27} ‘If you let me pass through your land, I will travel only along the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left.^{(D) 28} You shall sell me food for money, so that I may eat, and supply me water for money, so that I may drink. Only allow me to pass through on foot^(E)— ²⁹ just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir have done for me and likewise the Moabites who live in Ar—until I cross the Jordan into the land that the Lord our God is giving us.’ ³⁰ But King Sihon of Heshbon was not willing to let us pass through, for the Lord your God had hardened his spirit and made his heart defiant in order to hand him over to you, as he has now done.^(F)

³¹ “The Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin now to take possession of his land.’^{(G) 32} So when Sihon came out against us, he and all his people for battle at Jahaz,^{(H) 33} the Lord our God gave him over to us, and we struck him down, along with his offspring and all his people.

²³ But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. Sihon gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to the wilderness; he came to Jahaz and fought against Israel.^{(A) 24} Israel put him to the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites, for the boundary of the Ammonites was strong.^{(B) 25} Israel took all these towns, and Israel settled in all the towns of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all its villages.

³² So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great size.^{(A) 33} There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim), and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”^(B)

²⁸ Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large, and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.^{(A) 29} The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”^(B)