²⁶ So I sent messengers from the Wilderness of Kedmoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with an offer of peace. I said, ²⁷ “Let us pass through your land. We will proceed only on the road. We will not turn aside to the right or to the left. ²⁸ You can sell us food in exchange for money so we can eat, and you can give us water in exchange for money so we can drink. Only let us pass through on foot, ²⁹ as did the people of Esau living in Seir and the Moabites living in Ar, until we can cross over the Jordan into the land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

³⁰ But Sihon king of the Amorites was not willing to let us pass through on the road, because the Lord your God gave him a stubborn attitude by making his heart obstinate, in order to give him over into your hands, as is now the case today. ³¹ Then the Lord said to me, “Look now, I have begun to give you Sihon and his land. Start taking action to take possession of his land.”

³² Then Sihon and all of his people went out to meet us in battle at Jahaz. ³³ The Lord our God gave him to us, and we struck him down, as well as his sons and all his people. ³⁴ So we captured each of his cities at that time. We devoted each city to destruction, with the men, women, and children. We did not leave a survivor. ³⁵ We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, as well as the spoils of war from the cities that we captured. ³⁶ From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Canyon, from the city that is in the canyon, all the way up to Gilead, there was not a city that was out of reach for us. The Lord our God gave us everything. ³⁷ But it was only the land of the people of Ammon that you did not approach: the land along both sides of the Jabbok Canyon, the cities of the hill country, and everything that the Lord our God had forbidden us to take.