²⁸ Say to them, ^(A)‘As I live, declares the Lord, ^(B)what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: ^29 (C)your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and ^(D)of all your number, listed in the census ^(E)from twenty years old and upwards, who have grumbled against me, ³⁰ not one shall come into the land where I ^(F)swore that I would make you dwell, ^(G)except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ^31 (H)But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that ^(I)you have rejected. ³² But as for you, ^(J)your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³ And your children ^(K)shall be shepherds in the wilderness for ^(L)forty years and shall ^(M)suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ^34 (N)According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, ^(O)forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity for forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ ^35 (P)I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all ^(Q)this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

Arad Destroyed

21 When ^(A)the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in ^(B)the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. ^2 (C)And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”^{[a] 3} And the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called ^(D)Hormah.^[b]

The Bronze Serpent

⁴ From Mount Hor ^(E)they set out by the way to the Red Sea, ^(F)to go round the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.

King Sihon Defeated

²¹ Then ^(A)Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, ^22 (B)“Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into field or vineyard. We will not drink the water of a well. We will go by the King's Highway until we have passed through your territory.” ^23 (C)But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. He gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to the wilderness and ^(D)came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. ^24 (E)And Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the ^(F)Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites, for the border of the Ammonites was strong. ²⁵ And Israel took all these cities, and Israel settled in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all its villages. ²⁶ For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

King Og Defeated

³¹ Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites. ³² And Moses sent to spy out ^(A)Jazer, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. ³³ Then they turned and went up by the way to Bashan. And Og the king of Bashan came out against them, he and all his people, to battle ^(B)at Edrei. ^34 (C)But the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And ^(D)you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.” ³⁵ So they defeated him and his sons and all his people, until he had no survivor left. And they possessed his land.