The Command to Leave Horeb

1 These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in ^(A)the Arabah opposite ^(B)Suph, between ^(C)Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ² It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to ^(D)Kadesh-barnea. ^3 (E)In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them, ⁴ after ^(F)he had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and ^(G)Og the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and in ^(H)Edrei. ⁵ Beyond the Jordan, ^(I)in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, ⁶ “The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, ^(J)‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷ Turn and take your journey, and go to ^(K)the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in ^(L)the Arabah, ^(M)in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and ^(N)by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. ⁸ See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, ^(O)to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.’

Leaders Appointed

⁹ “At that time ^(P)I said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by myself. ¹⁰ The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, ^(Q)you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. ^11 (R)May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, ^(S)as he has promised you! ^12 (T)How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? ^13 (U)Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.’ ¹⁴ And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.’ ¹⁵ So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, ^(V)and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes. ¹⁶ And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and ^(W)judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. ^17 (X)You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for ^(Y)the judgment is God's. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall ^(Z)bring to me, and I will hear it.’ ¹⁸ And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.

Israel's Refusal to Enter the Land

¹⁹ “Then we set out from Horeb and ^(AA)went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And ^(AB)we came to Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰ And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. ²¹ See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. ^(AC)Do not fear or be dismayed.’ ²² Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’ ²³ The thing seemed good to me, and ^(AD)I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴ And ^(AE)they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out. ²⁵ And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.’

²⁶ “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷ And ^(AF)you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord ^(AG)hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, ^(AH)to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. ²⁸ Where are we going up? ^(AI)Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, ^(AJ)“The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen ^(AK)the sons of the Anakim there.”’ ²⁹ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. ³⁰ The Lord your God who goes before you ^(AL)will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, ³¹ and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God ^(AM)carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ ³² Yet in spite of this word ^(AN)you did not believe the Lord your God, ^33 (AO)who went before you in the way ^(AP)to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.

The Penalty for Israel's Rebellion

³⁴ “And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, ^35 (AQ)‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, ^36 (AR)except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’ ³⁷ Even with me ^(AS)the Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. ^38 (AT)Joshua the son of Nun, ^(AU)who stands before you, he shall enter. ^(AV)Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. ³⁹ And as for ^(AW)your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today ^(AX)have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. ⁴⁰ But as for you, ^(AY)turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’

⁴¹ “Then you answered me, ^(AZ)‘We have sinned against the Lord. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. ⁴² And the Lord said to me, ^(BA)‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, ^(BB)for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’ ⁴³ So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the Lord and ^(BC)presumptuously went up into the hill country. ^44 (BD)Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you ^(BE)as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as ^(BF)Hormah. ⁴⁵ And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. ⁴⁶ So ^(BG)you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.

Moses Forbidden to Enter the Land

²³ “And I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, ²⁴ ‘O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant ^(A)your greatness and your mighty hand. For ^(B)what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? ²⁵ Please let me go over and see ^(C)the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and ^(D)Lebanon.’ ²⁶ But ^(E)the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me, ^(F)‘Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again. ^27 (G)Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and look at it with your eyes, for you shall not go over this Jordan. ²⁸ But ^(H)charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see.’ ²⁹ So we remained in ^(I)the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Moses Commands Obedience

4 “And now, O Israel, listen to ^(J)the statutes and the rules^[a] that I am teaching you, and do them, ^(K)that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ^2 (L)You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. ³ Your eyes have seen what the Lord did ^(M)at Baal-peor, for the Lord your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor. ⁴ But you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today. ⁵ See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ^6 (N)Keep them and do them, for ^(O)that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ ⁷ For ^(P)what great nation is there that has ^(Q)a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? ⁸ And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so ^(R)righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

^9 (S)“Only take care, and ^(T)keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. ^(U)Make them known to your children and your children's children— ¹⁰ how on ^(V)the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ^(W)‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, ^(X)so that they may learn to fear ^(Y)me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ ¹¹ And ^(Z)you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while ^(AA)the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. ¹² Then ^(AB)the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, ^(AC)but saw no form; ^(AD)there was only a voice. ^13 (AE)And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, ^(AF)the Ten Commandments,^{[b] (AG)}and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ And ^(AH)the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.

Idolatry Forbidden

^15 (AI)“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since ^(AJ)you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, ¹⁶ beware ^(AK)lest you act corruptly ^(AL)by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, ^(AM)the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. ¹⁹ And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see ^(AN)the sun and the moon and the stars, ^(AO)all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. ²⁰ But the Lord has taken you and ^(AP)brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, ^(AQ)to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. ²¹ Furthermore, ^(AR)the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. ²² For I must die in this land; ^(AS)I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of ^(AT)that good land. ^23 (AU)Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and ^(AV)make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. ²⁴ For ^(AW)the Lord your God is a consuming fire, ^(AX)a jealous God.

²⁵ “When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, ^(AY)and you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and ^(AZ)by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, ²⁶ I ^(BA)call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ And the Lord ^(BB)will scatter you among the peoples, ^(BC)and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. ²⁸ And ^(BD)there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, ^(BE)that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. ^29 (BF)But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰ When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you ^(BG)in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. ³¹ For the Lord your God is ^(BH)a merciful God. ^(BI)He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

The Lord Alone Is God

³² “For ^(BJ)ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. ^33 (BK)Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? ³⁴ Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, ^(BL)by signs, by wonders, and ^(BM)by war, ^(BN)by a mighty hand and ^(BO)an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ To you it was shown, ^(BP)that you might know that the Lord is God; ^(BQ)there is no other besides him. ^36 (BR)Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and ^(BS)you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. ³⁷ And because ^(BT)he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them^[c] and brought you out of Egypt ^(BU)with his own presence, by his great power, ^38 (BV)driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, ³⁹ know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that ^(BW)the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; ^(BX)there is no other. ^40 (BY)Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, ^(BZ)that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”