Beginning

Moses Talks to the Israelites

1 This is the message Moses gave the people of Israel. They were in the desert east of the Jordan River. They were in the Jordan Valley near Suph, between Paran and the towns of Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab.

² (The trip from Mount Sinai to Kadesh Barnea on the Mount Edom road takes 11 days.) ³ But it was now 40 years after the Israelites had left Egypt. On the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people. He told them everything the Lord had commanded him to tell them. ⁴ This was after the Lord had defeated Sihon and Og. Sihon was king of the Amorite people and lived in Heshbon. Og was king of Bashan and lived in Ashteroth and Edrei.

⁵ Now the Israelites were east of the Jordan River in the land of Moab. There Moses began to explain what God had commanded. Moses said:

⁶ The Lord our God spoke to us at Mount Sinai. He said, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷ Get ready. Go to the mountain country of the Amorites. Go to all the places around there—the Jordan Valley, the mountains, the western slopes, the southern area, the seacoast, the land of Canaan and Lebanon. Go as far as the great river, the Euphrates. ⁸ See, I have given you this land. Go in and take it for yourselves. The Lord promised it to your ancestors—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants.”

Moses Appoints Leaders

⁹ At that time I said, “I am not able to take care of you by myself. ¹⁰ The Lord your God has made you grow in number. There are as many of you as there are stars in the sky. ¹¹ I pray that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, will give you a thousand times more people. That’s what he promised. ¹² But I cannot take care of your problems, your troubles and your arguments by myself. ¹³ So choose some men from each tribe. Choose wise men who have understanding and experience. I will make them leaders over you.”

¹⁴ And you said, “That’s a good thing to do.”

¹⁵ So I took the wise and experienced leaders of your tribes. And I made them your leaders. I appointed commanders over 1,000 people, over 100 people, over 50 people and over 10 people. I made them officers over your tribes. ¹⁶ Then I told your judges, “Listen to the arguments between your people. Judge fairly between two Israelites or between an Israelite and a foreigner. ¹⁷ When you judge, be fair to everyone. Don’t act as if one person is more important than another. Don’t be afraid of anyone, because your decision comes from God. Bring the hard cases to me. I will judge them.” ¹⁸ At that time I told you everything you must do.

Spies Enter the Land

¹⁹ Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we left Mount Sinai. We went toward the mountain country of the Amorite people. We went through that large and terrible desert you saw. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰ Then I said to you, “You have now come to the mountain country of the Amorites. The Lord our God will give us this land. ²¹ Look, there it is! Go up. Take it. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you to do this. So don’t be afraid. Don’t worry.”

²² Then all of you came to me. You said, “Let’s send men before us to spy out the land. They can come back and tell us the way we should go. They can tell us about the cities we will find.”

²³ I thought that was a good idea. So I chose 12 of your men, 1 for each tribe. ²⁴ They left and went up to the mountains. They came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it. ²⁵ They took some of the fruit from that land. And they brought it down to us. They said, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

Israel Refuses to Enter

²⁶ But you refused to go. You would not obey the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷ You grumbled in your tents. You said, “The Lord hates us. He brought us out of Egypt just to give us to the Amorites. They will destroy us. ²⁸ Where can we go now? The spies we sent have made us afraid. They said, ‘The people there are bigger and taller than we are. The cities are big. They have walls up to the sky. And we saw the Anakites there!’”

²⁹ Then I said to you, “Don’t be frightened. Don’t be afraid of those people. ³⁰ The Lord your God will go ahead of you. He will fight for you as he did in Egypt. You saw him do it. ³¹ And in the desert you saw how the Lord your God carried you. He was like a man carrying his son. And he has brought you safely all the way to this place.”

³² But you still did not trust the Lord your God. ³³ As you moved, he went before you. He found places for you to camp. He went before you in a fire at night and in a cloud during the day. He showed you which way to go.

³⁴ When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry. He made a promise. He said, ³⁵ “I promised a good land to your ancestors. But none of you evil people will see it. ³⁶ Only Caleb son of Jephunneh will see it. I will give him and his descendants the land he walked on. I will do this because he followed me completely.”

³⁷ Because of you, the Lord was also angry with me. He said to me, “You won’t enter the land either. ³⁸ But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will go there. Encourage Joshua, because he will lead Israel to take the land for their own.”

³⁹ The Lord said to us, “You said your babies would be captured. But they will go into the land. They are too young to know right from wrong. So I will give the land to them. And they will take it for their own. ⁴⁰ But you must turn around. Follow the desert road toward the Gulf of Aqaba.”

⁴¹ Then you said to me, “We have sinned against the Lord. But now we will go up and fight, as the Lord our God commanded us.” Then all of you put on weapons. You thought it would be easy to go into the mountains.

⁴² But the Lord said to me, “Tell them not to go up there and fight. I will not be with them. Their enemies will defeat them.”

⁴³ So I told you, but you would not listen. You would not obey the Lord’s command. You were proud. So you went on up into the mountains. ⁴⁴ The Amorites who lived there came out and fought you. They chased you like bees. They defeated you from Edom to Hormah. ⁴⁵ So you came back and cried to the Lord. But the Lord did not hear you. He refused to listen to you. ⁴⁶ So you stayed in Kadesh a long time.

Israel Wanders in the Desert

2 Then we turned around. And we traveled on the desert road toward the Gulf of Aqaba. That is what the Lord had told me to do. We traveled through the mountains of Edom for many days.

² Then the Lord said to me, ³ “You have traveled through these mountains long enough. Turn north. ⁴ Tell the people this: ‘You will soon go through the land of Edom. This land belongs to your relatives, the descendants of Esau. They will be afraid of you. But be very careful. ⁵ Don’t go to war against them. I am not giving you any of their land—not even a foot of it. I have given the mountains of Edom to Esau as his own. ⁶ You must pay them in silver for any food you eat or water you drink.’”

⁷ The Lord your God has blessed everything you have done. He has protected you while you traveled through this large desert. The Lord your God has been with you for these 40 years. You have had everything you needed.

⁸ So we passed by our relatives, the people of Esau who lived in Edom. We turned off the Jordan Valley road. It comes from the towns of Elath and Ezion Geber. And we traveled along the desert road of Moab.

The Land of Ar

⁹ Then the Lord said to me, “Don’t bother the people of Moab. Don’t go to war against them. I am not giving you any of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot.” ¹⁰ (The Emites lived in Ar before. They were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakites. ¹¹ The Emites were thought to be Rephaites, like the Anakites. But the Moabite people called them Emites. ¹² The Horites also lived in Edom before. But the people of Esau forced them out. They destroyed the Horites and took their place. That is also what Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their own.)

¹³ And the Lord said to me, “Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.” So we crossed the valley. ¹⁴ It had been 38 years since we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, all the fighting men from that time had died. This is what the Lord had promised would happen. ¹⁵ The Lord had continued to destroy them until they were all gone from the camp. ¹⁶ Now the last of those fighting men had died.

¹⁷ Then the Lord said to me, ¹⁸ “Today you must go by Ar, on the border of Moab. ¹⁹ When you come near the people of Ammon, don’t bother them. Don’t go to war against them. I am not giving you their land. I have given that land to the descendants of Lot.”

²⁰ (That land was also thought to be a land of Rephaites. Those people used to live there. But the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹ They were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakites. The Lord went before the Ammonites and destroyed the Zamzummites. The Ammonites forced them out of the land and took their place. ²² The Lord did the same thing for the descendants of Esau. They lived in Edom. He destroyed the Horites. The Edomites forced them out of the land and took their place. And they live there to this day. ²³ The Caphtorite people came from Crete. They destroyed the Avvites. The Avvites lived in towns all the way to Gaza. But the Caphtorites destroyed them and took their place.)

Fighting the Amorites

²⁴ The Lord said, “Get up. Cross the Arnon Ravine. See, I am giving you the power to defeat Sihon the Amorite. He is king of Heshbon. I am giving you his land. So fight against him and begin taking his land. ²⁵ Today I will begin to make all the people in the world afraid of you. They will hear reports about you. And they will shake with fear. They will be terrified of you.”

²⁶ I sent messengers from the desert of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon. They offered him peace. They said, ²⁷ “Let us pass through your country. We will stay on the road. We will not turn right or left. ²⁸ We will pay you in silver for any food we eat or water we drink. We only want to walk through your country. ²⁹ The descendants of Esau in Edom let us go through their land. So did the Moabites in Ar. We want to cross the Jordan River into the land the Lord our God has given us.” ³⁰ But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass. The Lord your God had made him stubborn. The Lord wanted you to defeat Sihon. And now this has happened.

³¹ The Lord said to me, “See, I have begun to give Sihon and his country to you. Begin taking the land as your own.”

³² Then Sihon and all his army came out. And they fought us at Jahaz. ³³ But the Lord our God gave Sihon to us. We defeated him, his sons and all his army. ³⁴ We captured all his cities. We completely destroyed them, the men, women and children. We left no one alive. ³⁵ But we kept the cattle and valuable things from the cities for ourselves. ³⁶ We defeated Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Ravine. And we defeated the town in the ravine, and even Gilead. No town was too strong for us. The Lord our God gave us all of them. ³⁷ But you did not go near the land of the Ammonites. You did not go near the shores of the Jabbok River. You did not go near the towns in the mountains. This was what the Lord our God had commanded.