Deuteronomy 2:1-15

Revised Standard Version

The Desert Years

2 “Then we turned, and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the Lord told me; and for many days we went about Mount Se′ir. ² Then the Lord said to me, ³ ‘You have been going about this mountain country long enough; turn northward. ⁴ And command the people, You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren the sons of Esau, who live in Se′ir; and they will be afraid of you. So take good heed; ⁵ do not contend with them; for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Se′ir to Esau as a possession. ⁶ You shall purchase food from them for money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water of them for money, that you may drink. ⁷ For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands; he knows your going through this great wilderness; these forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.’ ⁸ So we went on, away from our brethren the sons of Esau who live in Se′ir, away from the Arabah road from Elath and E′zion-ge′ber.

“And we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab. ⁹ And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot for a possession.’ ¹⁰ (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; ¹¹ like the Anakim they are also known as Reph′aim, but the Moabites call them Emim. ¹² The Horites also lived in Se′ir formerly, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them, and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their stead; as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the Lord gave to them.) ¹³ ‘Now rise up, and go over the brook Zered.’ So we went over the brook Zered. ¹⁴ And the time from our leaving Ka′desh-bar′nea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. ¹⁵ For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from the camp, until they had perished.