Deuteronomy 2:4–19

⁴Command the people: You are about to travel through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so you must be very careful. ⁵Don’t fight with them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even an inch of it, ^qbecause I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his possession. ^r6You may purchase food from them with silver, so that you may eat, and buy water from them to drink. ^s7For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. ^tHe has watched over your journey through this immense wilderness. The Lord your God has been with you this past 40 years, and you have lacked nothing.’ ^u

Journey past Moab

⁸“So we bypassed our brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned away from the Arabah road and from Elath and Ezion-geber. ^vWe traveled along the road to the Wilderness of Moab. ⁹The Lord said to me, ‘Show no hostility toward Moab, and do not provoke them to battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, since I have given Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot.’ ” ^w

¹⁰The Emim, a great and numerous people as tall as the Anakim, ^xhad previously lived there. ¹¹They were also regarded as Rephaim, ^ylike the Anakim, though the Moabites called them Emim. ^z12The Horites had previously lived in Seir, ^abut the descendants of Esau drove them out, destroying them completely ^band settling in their place, just as Israel did in the land of its possession the Lord gave them.

¹³“The Lord said, ‘Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.’ So we crossed the Zered Valley. ^c14The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley was 38 years until the entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. ¹⁵Indeed, the Lord’s hand was against them, to eliminate ^dthem from the camp until they had all perished. ^e

Journey past Ammon

¹⁶“When all the fighting men had died among the people, ¹⁷the Lord spoke to me, ¹⁸‘Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar. ¹⁹When you get close to the Ammonites, don’t show any hostility to them or fight with them, for I will not give you any of the Ammonites’ land as a possession; I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.’ ” ^f