Deuteronomy 1:7-4:49

Common English Bible

⁷ Get going! Enter the hills of the Amorites and the surrounding areas in the desert, the highlands, the lowlands, the arid southern region, and the seacoast—the land of the Canaanites—and the Lebanon range, all the way to the great Euphrates River. ⁸ Look, I have laid the land before you. Go and possess the land that I^[a] promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as to their descendants after them.

⁹ At that same time, I told you: I can’t handle all of you by myself. ¹⁰ The Lord your God has multiplied your number—you are now as countless as the stars in the sky. ¹¹ May the Lord, your ancestors’ God, continue to multiply you—a thousand times more! And may God bless you, just as he promised. ¹² But how can I handle all your troubles, burdens, and disputes by myself? ¹³ Now, for each of your tribes, choose wise, discerning, and well-regarded individuals. I will appoint them as your leaders.

¹⁴ You answered me: “What you have proposed is a good idea.”

¹⁵ So I took leading individuals from your tribes, people who were wise and well-regarded, and I set them up as your leaders. There were commanders over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, as well as officials for each of your tribes.

¹⁶ At that same time, I commanded your judges: Listen to your fellow tribe members and judge fairly, whether the dispute is between one fellow tribe member or between a tribe member and an immigrant. ¹⁷ Don’t show favoritism in a decision. Hear both sides out, whether the person is important or not. Don’t be afraid of anyone because the ruling belongs to God. Any dispute that is too difficult for you to decide, bring to me and I will take care of it.

¹⁸ So at that time, I commanded you concerning everything you were to do.

The spy disaster

¹⁹ We left Horeb and journeyed through that vast and terrifying desert you saw, on the way to the hills of the Amorites, exactly as the Lord our God commanded us. Then we arrived at Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰ I said to you: You have come to the hills of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving to us. ²¹ Look! The Lord your God has laid out the land before you. Go up and take it, just as the Lord, your ancestors’ God, has promised you. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be frightened!

²² Then all of you approached me, saying, “Let’s send spies ahead of us—they can check out the land for us. Then they can return with word about the route we should use and bring a report about the cities that we’ll be entering.”

²³ This idea seemed good to me, so I selected twelve men, one from each tribe. ²⁴ These set out and went up into the hills, going as far as the Cluster^[b] ravine. They walked all around that area. ²⁵ They took some of the land’s fruit and then came back down to us. They reported to us: “The land that the Lord our God is giving to us is wonderful!” ²⁶ But you weren’t willing to go up. You rejected the Lord your God’s instruction. ²⁷ You complained in your tents, saying things like, “The Lord hates us! That’s why he brought us out of Egypt—to hand us over to the Amorites, to destroy us! ²⁸ What are we doing? Our brothers have made our hearts sick by saying, ‘People far stronger and much taller than we live there, and the cities are huge, with walls sky-high! Worse still, we saw the descendants of the Anakites there!’”

²⁹ But I said to you: Don’t be terrified! Don’t be afraid of them! ³⁰ The Lord your God is going before you. He will fight for you just as he fought for you in Egypt while you watched, ³¹ and as you saw him do in the desert. Throughout your entire journey, until you reached this very place, the Lord your God has carried you just as a parent carries a child.

³² But you had no faith in the Lord your God about this matter, ³³ even though he went ahead of you, scouting places where you should camp, in fire by night, so you could see the road you were taking, and in cloud during the daytime.

³⁴ The Lord heard what you said. He was angry and he swore: ³⁵ Not even one of these people—this wicked generation!—will see the wonderful land that I promised to give to your ancestors. ³⁶ The only exception is Caleb, Jephunneh’s son. He will see it. I will give the land he walked on to him and his children for this reason: he was completely devoted to the Lord.

(³⁷ The Lord was even angry with me because of what you did. “You won’t enter the land either,” God said. ³⁸ “But Nun’s son Joshua, your assistant, will enter it. Strengthen him because he’s the one who will help Israel inherit the land.”)

³⁹ Now as for your toddlers, those you said would be taken in war, and your young children who don’t yet know right and wrong—they will enter the land. I will give it to them. They will possess it! ⁴⁰ But you all must now turn around. Head back toward the wilderness along the route of the Reed Sea.^[c]

⁴¹ You replied to me: “We’ve sinned against the Lord! We will go up! We will fight, just as the Lord our God commanded.” Each one of you grabbed your weapons. You thought it would be easy^[d] to go up into the hills. ⁴² But the Lord told me: Tell them: Don’t go up! Don’t fight because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.

⁴³ I reported this to you but you wouldn’t listen. You disobeyed the Lord’s instruction. Hotheadedly, you went up into the hills. ⁴⁴ And the Amorites who lived in those hills came out to meet you in battle. They chased you like bees give chase! They gave you a beating from Seir all the way to Hormah. ⁴⁵ When you came back, you cried before the Lord, but he wouldn’t respond to your tears or give you a hearing.

⁴⁶ And so you stayed in Kadesh-barnea for quite some time.

Journeys in Transjordan

2 Next, we turned around and headed back toward the wilderness along the Reed Sea^[e] road, exactly as the Lord instructed me. We traveled all around Mount Seir for a long time.

² Eventually the Lord said: ³ You’ve been traveling around this mountain long enough. Head north. ⁴ Command the people as follows: You are about to enter into the territory of your relatives who live in Seir: Esau’s descendants. They will be afraid of you, so watch yourselves most carefully. ⁵ Don’t fight with them because I will not give the tiniest parcel of their land to you. I have given Mount Seir to Esau’s family as their property. ⁶ Of course you may buy food from them with money so you can eat, and also water with money so you can drink.

⁷ No doubt about it: the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done. He watched over your journey through that vast desert. Throughout these forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You haven’t needed a thing.

⁸ So we passed through the territory of our relatives who live in Seir, Esau’s descendants, leaving the desert road from Elath and from Ezion-geber. Next we turned and went along the Moab wilderness route. ⁹ The Lord said to me: Don’t aggravate Moab. Don’t fight them in battle because I won’t give any part of their land to you as your own. I have given Ar to Lot’s descendants as their property.

(¹⁰ Now the Emim^[f] had lived there before. They were big and numerous and tall—just like the Anakim. ¹¹ Most people thought the Emim were Rephaim, like the Anakim were. But the Moabites called them “Emim.” ¹² Additionally, the Horim^[g] had lived in Seir previously, but Esau’s descendants took possession of their area, eliminating them altogether and settling in their place. That is exactly what Israel did in the land it took possession of, which the Lord gave to them.)

¹³ “So then, get going. Cross the Zered ravine.”

So we crossed the Zered ravine.

¹⁴ It took us a total of thirty-eight years to go from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered ravine. It was at that point that the last of the previous generation, every one of fighting age in the camp, had died, just as the Lord had sworn about them. ¹⁵ In fact, the Lord’s power was against them, to rid the camp of them, until they were all gone.

¹⁶ Now as soon as all those of fighting age had died, ¹⁷ the Lord said to me: ¹⁸ Today you are crossing through the territory of Moab and Ar ¹⁹ and you will come close to the Ammonites. Don’t aggravate them. Don’t fight with them because I won’t give any part of the Ammonites’ land to you as your own. I’ve given it to Lot’s descendants as their property.

²⁰ Now people thought that land was Rephaim territory as well. The Rephaim had lived there previously. But the Ammonites called them “Zamzummim.”^{[h] 21} They were large, numerous, and tall, just like the Anakim. But the Lord completely destroyed the Zamzummim before the Ammonites, and they took possession of that area, settling in their place. ²² That is exactly what God did for Esau’s descendants, who live in Seir, when he completely destroyed the Horites in their presence, and they took possession of the Horites’ area, settling in their place to this very day. ²³ The Avvim,^[i] who had lived in settlements around Gaza, were completely destroyed by the Caphtorim, who had come from Caphtor. They replaced the Avvim there.

Victories in Transjordan

²⁴ “So get going. Cross the Arnon ravine. I have handed Sihon the Amorite king of Heshbon and his land over to you. It’s time to possess the area! It’s time to fight him in battle! ²⁵ Starting right now, I am making everyone everywhere afraid of you and scared of you. Once they hear news of you, they will be shaking and worrying because of you.”

²⁶ I then sent messengers from the Kedemoth desert to Sihon, Heshbon’s king, with words of peace: ²⁷ “Please let us^[j] pass through your land. We promise to stay on the road. We won’t step off it, right or left. ²⁸ Please sell us food for money so we can eat; sell us water for money so we can drink. Let us pass through on foot— ²⁹ just as Esau’s descendants who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me—until we cross the Jordan River into the land that the Lord our God is giving to us.”

³⁰ But Sihon, Heshbon’s king, wasn’t willing to let us pass through his land because the Lord your God had made his spirit hard and his heart inflexible so that God could hand him over to you, which is exactly how it happened. ³¹ The Lord said to me: Look! Right now I’m laying Sihon and his land before you. It’s time to take possession of his land!

³² Sihon and all his forces came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz. ³³ But the Lord our God gave him to us. We struck him down, along with his sons, and all his forces. ³⁴ At that time, we captured all of Sihon’s cities, and we placed every town—men, women, and children—under the ban.^[k] We left no survivors. ³⁵ The only things we kept for ourselves were the animals and the plunder from the towns we had taken. ³⁶ From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Ravine, to the town that is in the valley there,^[l] even as far as Gilead, there wasn’t a city that could resist us. The Lord our God laid everything out before us. ³⁷ But you didn’t go near the Ammonite lands or hillside cities alongside the Jabbok River, in compliance with all^[m] that the Lord our God had commanded.

3 Next we turned and went up along the road to Bashan. Og, Bashan’s king, came out with all his forces to meet us in battle at Edrei. ² The Lord said to me: Don’t be afraid of him! I have handed him, all his forces, and his land over to you. Do the same thing to him that you did to Sihon, the Amorite king who ruled in Heshbon.

³ And so the Lord our God also handed Og, Bashan’s king, along with his forces, over to us. We struck them down until no survivor was left. ⁴ We also captured all of Og’s towns at that time. There wasn’t a single city that we didn’t take from them—a total of sixty towns, the entire region of Argob, the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan. ⁵ Each of these towns was fortified with high walls, double gates, and crossbars. Outside the towns there were also a great number of villages.^{[n] 6} We placed them under the ban, just as we did with Sihon, Heshbon’s king. Every town—men, women, and children—was under the ban.^{[o] 7} The only things we kept for ourselves were the animals and the plunder from the towns.

⁸ So at that time, we took the land that had belonged to the two Amorite kings beyond the Jordan, all the way from the Arnon Ravine to Mount Hermon (⁹ Sidonians call Hermon “Sirion,” but the Amorites call it “Senir”), ¹⁰ including all the towns on the plateau, in the regions of Gilead and Bashan, and all the way to Salecah and Edrei—all the towns that belonged to Og’s kingdom in Bashan.

(¹¹ By the way, Bashan’s King Og was the last of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron. Isn’t it still in the Ammonite town of Rabbah? By standard measurements, it was thirteen and a half feet long and six feet wide.)

¹² So this is the land we possessed at that time. I gave some of it, from Aroer, which is beside the Arnon River, up through half of the Gilead highlands, along with its cities, to the Reubenites and the Gadites. ¹³ The rest of the Gilead region and all of Bashan, Og’s kingdom, I gave to half the tribe of Manasseh.

(Now the whole Argob area, including all of Bashan, was often called Rephaim Country. ¹⁴ Jair, from the tribe of Manasseh, took possession of the entire Argob region, as far as the border with the Geshurites and the Maacathites. He named the Bashan area after himself, Jair’s Settlement. That’s what it’s still called today.)

¹⁵ I also gave Gilead to Machir. ¹⁶ To the Reubenites and the Gadites, I gave land from the Gilead, as far as the Arnon River—the middle of the river being the boundary line—to the Jabbok River, which is the boundary line with the Ammonites. ¹⁷ Also the desert plain, with the Jordan River as the boundary, from the Galilee Sea^[p] down to the desert sea (the Dead Sea^[q]) below the slopes of Mount Pisgah on the east.

¹⁸ Then I commanded you: Although the Lord your God has given you this land to possess, you must now cross over before the rest of your Israelite relatives as a fighting force ready for battle! ¹⁹ However, your wives, children, and herds—I know you have lots of herds!—may remain in the towns that I have given to you. ²⁰ Once the Lord settles your relatives, as you have been settled, and they also possess the land that the Lord your God is giving them across the Jordan River, each of you can return to the property that I have given to you.

²¹ It was at that same time that I commanded Joshua: You saw everything that the Lord your God did to these two kings. That is exactly what the Lord will do to all the kingdoms where you’re going! ²² Don’t be afraid of them because the Lord your God is the one who will be fighting for you.

Moses’ prayer

²³ It was also at that same time that I begged the Lord: ²⁴ Please, Lord God! You have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand. What god in heaven or on earth can act as you do or can perform your deeds and powerful acts? ²⁵ Please let me cross over the Jordan River so I can see the wonderful land that lies beyond it: those beautiful highlands, even the Lebanon region.

²⁶ But the Lord was angry with me because of you! He wouldn’t listen to me. He said to me: That’s enough from you! Don’t ever ask me about this again! ²⁷ Go up to the top of Mount Pisgah. Look west, north, south, and east. Have a good look, but you will not cross the Jordan River. ²⁸ Instead, command Joshua, strengthen him, and encourage him because he’s the one who will cross the river before this people. He’s the one who will make sure they inherit the land you will see.

²⁹ After that, we stayed in the valley across from Beth-peor.

The events at Mount Horeb

4 Now, Israel, in light of all that, listen to the regulations and the case laws that I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live, enter, and possess the land that the Lord, your ancestors’ God, is giving to you. ² Don’t add anything to the word that I am commanding you, and don’t take anything away from it. Instead, keep the commands of the Lord your God that I am commanding all of you.

³ You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did concerning the Baal of Peor. The Lord your God destroyed everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, ⁴ but all of you who stayed true to the Lord your God are alive today. ⁵ So pay attention! I am teaching all of you the regulations and the case laws exactly as the Lord my God commanded me. You must do these in the land you are entering to possess. ⁶ Keep them faithfully because that will show your wisdom and insight to the nations who will hear about all these regulations. They will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and insightful people!” ⁷ After all, is there any great nation that has gods^[r] as close to it as the Lord our God is close to us whenever we call to him? ⁸ Or does any great nation have regulations and case laws as righteous as all this Instruction that I am setting before you today?

⁹ But be on guard and watch yourselves closely so that you don’t forget the things your eyes saw and so they never leave your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren. ¹⁰ Remember that^[s] day when you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me: “Gather the people to me. I will declare my words to them so that they will learn to fear me every day of their lives on the fertile land, and teach their children to do the same.” ¹¹ Then you all came close and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was blazing with fire up to the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick smoke! ¹² The Lord spoke to you out of the very fire itself. You heard the sound of words, but you didn’t see any form. There was only a voice. ¹³ The Lord declared his covenant to you, which he commanded you to do—the Ten Commandments^[t]—and wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴ At that time, the Lord commanded me to teach you all the regulations and the case laws that you must keep in the land that you are entering to possess.

¹⁵ So watch your conduct closely, because you didn’t see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the very fire itself. ¹⁶ Don’t ruin everything and make an idol for yourself: a form of any image, any likeness—male or female— ¹⁷ or any likeness whatsoever, whether of a land animal, a bird that flies in the sky, ¹⁸ an insect that crawls on the earth, or a fish that lives in the sea. ¹⁹ Don’t look to the skies, to the sun or the moon or the stars, all the heavenly bodies, and be led astray, worshipping and serving them. The Lord your God has granted these things to all the nations who live under heaven. ²⁰ But the Lord took you and brought you out of that iron furnace, out of Egypt, so that you might be his own treasured people, which is what you are right now.

²¹ The Lord was angry with me because of your deeds and swore that I couldn’t cross the Jordan River or enter the wonderful land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. ²² I will die here in this land. I won’t cross the Jordan River. But you will, and you will take possession of that wonderful land. ²³ So all of you, watch yourselves! Don’t forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you by making an idol or an image of any kind or anything the Lord your God forbids, ²⁴ because the Lord your God is an all-consuming fire. He is a passionate God.

Warnings and teachings about future disobedience

²⁵ Once you have had children and grandchildren and have grown old on the land, if you ruin things by making an idol, in any form whatsoever, and do what is evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and anger him, ²⁶ I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you today: You will definitely disappear—and quickly—from the land that you are crossing over the Jordan River to possess. You won’t extend your time there but will instead be totally destroyed. ²⁷ The Lord will scatter you among the nations. Only a very few of you will survive in the countries where the Lord will drag you. ²⁸ There you will worship other^[u] gods, made of wood and stone by human hands—gods that cannot see, listen, eat, or smell. ²⁹ You will seek the Lord your God from there, and you will find him^[v] if you seek him with all your heart and with all your being. ³⁰ In your distress, when all these things happen to you in the future, you will return to the Lord your God and you will obey his voice, ³¹ because the Lord your God is a compassionate God. He won’t let you go, he won’t destroy you, and he won’t forget the covenant that he swore to your ancestors.

³² Now look into it: into days long past, before your time—all the way back to the day God first created human beings on earth, from one end of heaven to the other. Has anything this amazing ever happened? Has anything like it ever been heard of before? ³³ Has any people ever listened to a god’s voice speaking out of fire, as each of you have, and survived? ³⁴ Or has any god ever tried to take one nation out of another nation using tests, miracles, wonders, war, a strong hand and outstretched arm, or awesome power like all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt while you watched? ³⁵ You were shown these things so that you would know this: The Lord is the only God. There’s no other god except him. ³⁶ From heaven he made you hear his voice in order to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire. You heard his words from that very fire. ³⁷ And because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, God brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his own great power, ³⁸ in order to remove larger and stronger nations from before you and bring you into their land, giving it to you as an inheritance. That’s where things stand right now. ³⁹ Know then today and keep in mind that the Lord is the only God in heaven above or on earth below. There is no other. ⁴⁰ Keep the Lord’s regulations and his commandments. I’m commanding them to you today for your well-being and for the well-being of your children after you, so that you may extend your time on the fertile land that the Lord your God is giving you forever.

Cities of refuge

⁴¹ Then Moses set aside three cities on the eastern side of the Jordan River ⁴² so that anyone who killed someone accidentally and without prior hatred could flee to one of these cities and be safe: ⁴³ Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

The second heading: Recounting the Horeb covenant

⁴⁴ Now this is the Instruction that Moses set before the Israelites. ⁴⁵ These are the laws and the regulations and the case laws that Moses spoke to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁶ This took place across the Jordan River, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the Amorite king who ruled in Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites defeated when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷ They took possession of his land and the land of Og, Bashan’s king—the two Amorite kings across the Jordan River to the east— ⁴⁸ from Aroer, which is on the banks of the Arnon River, all the way to Mount Sion,^[w] also known as Hermon, ⁴⁹ and all the desert regions across the Jordan River, on the east, down to the Dead Sea, beneath the slopes of Mount Pisgah.