Beginning

Chapter 3

Defeat of Og. ¹ Next we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out against us, he and all his people, to give battle at Edrei. ² But the Lord said to me, “Do not fear him, for I will deliver him and all his people and his land into your hands. You will do the same thing to him that you did to Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.” ³ The Lord, our God, delivered Og, the king of Bashan, and all his people into our hands. We continued to attack them until there was not a single survivor left. ⁴ This was when we captured all of his cities. There was not a single city that we did not take from them, sixty in all, the entire region of the Argob, the kingdom of Og of Bashan. ⁵ All of these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars. There were also a great number of unfortified cities. ⁶ We totally destroyed them, just as we had destroyed Sihon, the king of Heshbon, wiping out the men, women, and children from every city. ⁷ But we took all the cattle and spoils of the cities as pillage.

⁸ This was when we took the land of two of the kings of the Amorites from their hands, land on the east of the Jordan, from the Arnon River to Mount Hermon. ⁹ (The Sidonians call Hermon Siron, while the Amorites call it Senir.) ¹⁰ This included all of the cities of the plain and all of Gilead and all of Bashan, up to Salecah and Edrei, cities in the kingdom of Og of Bashan. ¹¹ (Og was the last of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron, and it was nine cubits long and four cubits wide. It is now in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)^[a]

¹² Distribution of Conquered Lands. From the land that we occupied at this time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the land beginning at Aroer on the Arnon River and half of the hill country of Gilead as well as its cities. ¹³ I gave the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (This was the whole region of Argob with all of Bashan, and it was known as the land of the Rephaim. ¹⁴ The clan of Jair, the son of Manasseh, took the entire region of Argob up to the borders with the Geshurites and the Maacathites. They named it after themselves, so that Bashan is known as Havvoth-jair until the present.) ^15 [b]I gave Gilead to Machir. ¹⁶ I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the land that stretched from Gilead up to the Arnon River (with the center of the valley being the boundary) and on to the Jabbok River, the border with the Ammonites. ¹⁷ Its border on the west was the Jordan in the Arabah, from the Kinnereth down to the Sea in the Arabah, the Salt Sea, at the foot of the slopes of the Pisgah.

¹⁸ At that time I commanded you, “The Lord, your God, has given you this land to possess. Have all of the armed men pass over in front of their brethren, the Israelites, armed for battle. ¹⁹ But your wives and your children and your cattle (for I know that you have many cattle) can remain in your cities that I have given you. ²⁰ It will be this way until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he already has to you, so that they also come to possess the land that the Lord, your God, has given them on the other side of the Jordan. Then, each of you can return to the property that I have given you.”

²¹ Then I commanded Joshua, “You have seen with your own eyes what the Lord, your God, has done to these two kings. This is what the Lord will do to any kingdom that you might encounter.^{[c] 22} Do not be afraid of them, for the Lord, your God, will fight for you.”

²³ Moses Forbidden to Enter Jordan. At that time I pleaded with the Lord, ²⁴ “O Lord God, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong arm. What God in heaven or on earth can do such deeds and mighty works as yours? ²⁵ Please let me cross over and see the bounteous land that is on the other side of the Jordan, the hill country and the Lebanon.”

²⁶ But the Lord was angry with me because of you^[d] and would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, “Enough! Do not speak to me about this anymore. ²⁷ Climb up to the top of Pisgah and look to the west, the north, the south, and the east and see it with your own eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. ²⁸ But give orders to Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he is to lead this people across and he will give them the land that you see as an inheritance.” ²⁹ So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Chapter 4

Benefits of Obedience. ¹ Now listen, O Israel, to the statutes and the ordinances that I am teaching you to observe so that you might live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ^2 [e]You will not add to what I command you, nor will you take away from it, so that you might observe the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I am giving you. ³ Your own eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor, for the Lord, your God, wiped out from all of those who followed Baal-peor from your midst. ⁴ But every one of you who clung to the Lord, your God, is alive today.

⁵ Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord, my God, commanded me, so that you might enter into the land into which you are going and take possession of it. ⁶ Carefully observe them, for the nations will consider this is your wisdom and your understanding. They will hear all these statutes and say, “Truly this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ⁷ For what nation is as great as we are? Who has God as near to them, as the Lord, our God, is whenever we call upon him? ⁸ What nation is so great that it has statutes and ordinances as righteous as this law that I set before you today?

⁹ Only be careful and watch yourselves closely lest you ever forget the things that your eyes have seen or you let them slip out of your mind. Teach them to your children and your children’s children, ¹⁰ especially about the day that you stood before the Lord, your God, in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I might let them hear my words. They will thus learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and they will be able to teach their children.” ¹¹ You approached and stood at the base of the mountain. The mountain blazed with flames reaching the very heavens, and it was covered with dark clouds and thick darkness. ¹² The Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you did not see a form. There was only a voice. ¹³ He proclaimed his covenant to you which he ordered you to fulfill, the Ten Commandments, that he wrote upon two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ The Lord then commanded me to teach you the statutes and ordinances so that you might observe them in the land that you were crossing over to possess.

¹⁵ Pitfalls of Idolatry. Therefore, guard yourselves carefully, for you did not see any kind of form when the Lord spoke to you on Horeb from the midst of the fire. ¹⁶ Do not become perverse and make an idol for yourselves of any shape or likeness, whether male or female, ¹⁷ whether it be a land animal or a bird that flies in the skies, ¹⁸ or like something that crawls on the ground or a fish in the waters beneath the earth. ¹⁹ When you look up into the skies and you see the sun and the moon and stars, all the hosts of heaven, do not be enticed to worship and serve the things that the Lord, your God, has assigned to every other nation under the heavens. ²⁰ But as for you, the Lord has chosen you and taken you out from the iron furnace,^[f] out of Egypt, to be a people who are his own possession, as you are today.

²¹ The Lord was angry with me because of you and he swore that I would not cross over the Jordan nor enter the fertile land that the Lord, your God, has given to you as an inheritance. ²² I must die in this land; I will not cross over the Jordan. But you will cross over and take possession of this fertile land. ²³ Therefore, keep guard over yourselves, lest you forget the covenant that the Lord, your God, has made with you and you make an idol in the form of anything that the Lord, your God, has prohibited. ²⁴ The Lord, your God, is a consuming fire and a jealous God.

²⁵ When you have borne children and grandchildren and have dwelt in the land for a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord, your God, and provoking him to anger, ²⁶ I will call upon the heavens and the earth to give witness against you on that day so that you might be utterly obliterated from the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess. You will not remain there long, but you will be totally wiped out.

²⁷ The Lord will scatter you among the nations and only a few of you will survive among the foreign peoples where the Lord has led you. ²⁸ There you will serve gods, the work of human hands, made of wood and stone, which cannot see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

²⁹ But if you seek the Lord, your God, and you strive with all your heart and your soul, you will find him there. ³⁰ When you are in distress and all of these things happen to you in the future, you are to return to the Lord,^[g] your God, and obey his voice, ³¹ and he will not abandon you, nor destroy you nor forget the covenant that he made with your fathers, confirming it to them by oath, for the Lord, your God, is a merciful God.

³² Ask now about the days of old, the former times. From the day that God created humans upon the earth, inquire from one end of the heavens to the other, has anything so great ever happened or has anything like it been heard of? ³³ Has any other people heard the voice of God speak from the midst of the flame, as you heard, and still live? ³⁴ Did God ever go and lead one nation from the midst of another nation by trials, signs, wonders, and battle, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great and wondrous deeds, all things that the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

³⁵ You were shown these things so that you might come to know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. ³⁶ He had you hear his voice from out of the heavens so that he might instruct you. He showed you his great fire upon the earth so that you might hear his voice from the midst of the flames. ³⁷ It was because he loved your fathers and had chosen their descendants after them that he brought you out of Egypt before him by his great strength. ³⁸ He drove out greater and more powerful nations before you so that he might bring you into their land to give it to you as an inheritance, just as it is today.

³⁹ So today acknowledge it and take it to heart that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other. ⁴⁰ You shall obey his statutes and the commandments that I give you today, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may live long in the land that the Lord, your God, has given you for all time.

⁴¹ Cities of Refuge. Then Moses set aside three cities on the east of the Jordan ⁴² to which anyone who unintentionally killed another person with whom he had not previously been at enmity might flee. He could flee to one of these cities and save his life. ⁴³ They were Bezer,^[h] on the desert plateau, for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the men of Manasseh.

Moses’ Second Address

The Covenant with Israel^[i]

⁴⁴ Introduction. This is the law that Moses set before the Israelites. ⁴⁵ These are the stipulations, the statutes, and the judgments that Moses declared to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt ⁴⁶ and they were dwelling in the valley near Beth-peor on the east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and who was defeated by Moses and the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷ They took possession of his land and also the land of Og, the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who reigned on the east side of the Jordan. ⁴⁸ This land extended from Aroer, that is on the bank of the Arnon River, up to Mount Sion (that is Hermon). ⁴⁹ It included all of the plain on the east side of the Jordan up to the Sea in the Arabah, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.