Deuteronomy 2:24–4:46

²⁴‘Arise, set out, and pass through the ^1avalley of Arnon. Look! I have given Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land into your hand; begin to take possession and provoke him to battle.

²⁵‘This day I will begin to put ^athe dread and fear of you ¹upon the peoples ²everywhere under the heavens, who, when they hear the report of you, ^bwill tremble and be in anguish because of you.’

²⁶“^aSo I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying,

²⁷‘Let me pass through your land, I will ¹go only on the highway; I will not turn aside to the right or to the left.

²⁸‘You will sell me food for money so that I may eat, and give me water for money so that I may drink; ^aonly let me pass through on ¹foot,

²⁹just as the sons of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in ^aAr did for me, until I cross over the Jordan into the land which Yahweh our God is giving to us.’

³⁰“But ^aSihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to pass ¹through his land, for ^bYahweh your God stiffened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to give him over into your hand, as he is today.

³¹“And Yahweh said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land ¹over to you. Begin to possess, so that you may fully possess his land.’

³²“Then Sihon ¹with all his people came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz.

³³“^aBut Yahweh our God gave him ¹over to us, and we ^bstruck him down with his sons and all his people.

³⁴“So we captured all his cities at that time and ^1adevoted to destruction ²the men, women, and little ones of every city. We left no survivor remaining.

³⁵“We took ^aonly the animals as our plunder and the spoil of the cities which we had captured.

³⁶“From ^aAroer which is on the edge of the ¹valley of Arnon and from the city which is in the ²valley, even to Gilead, there was not a town that was too high for us; Yahweh our God gave all ³over to us.

³⁷“^aOnly you did not go near to the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the ¹river ^bJabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever Yahweh our God had commanded us.

CHAPTER 3

Israel Takes Possession of the Land

¹“^aThen we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan, ¹with all his people, came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.

²“But Yahweh said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land over into your hand; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’

³“So Yahweh our God also gave Og, king of Bashan, with all his people over into our hand, and we struck ¹them until ²there was no survivor remaining for him.

⁴“And we captured all his cities at that time; there was not a town which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of ^aArgob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

⁵“All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates and bars, besides a great many ¹unwalled towns.

⁶“And we ¹devoted them to destruction, as we did to ^aSihon king of Heshbon, ^2bdevoting to destruction ³the men, women, and little ones of every city.

⁷“^aBut all the animals and the spoil of the cities we took as our plunder.

⁸“^aThus we took the land at that time from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the ¹valley of Arnon to Mount Hermon

⁹(Sidonians ^acall Hermon ^bSirion, and the Amorites call it ^cSenir):

¹⁰all the cities of the plateau and all Gilead and ^aall Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

¹¹(For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the ^aRephaim. Behold, his ¹bedstead was an iron ²bedstead; it is in ^bRabbah of the sons of Ammon. Its length was ³nine cubits, and its width four cubits ⁴by ordinary cubit.)

¹²“So we took possession of this land at that time. From ^aAroer, which is by the ¹valley of Arnon, and half the hill country of ^bGilead and its cities I gave to the Reubenites and to the Gadites.

¹³“And the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the region of Argob. (Concerning all Bashan, it is called the land of Rephaim.

^14aJair the son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites and called ¹it—that is, Bashan—after his own name, ²Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.)

¹⁵“^aAnd to Machir I gave Gilead.

¹⁶“And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead even as far as the ¹valley of Arnon, the middle of the ²valley ³as a border and as far as the ⁴river ^aJabbok, the border of the sons of Ammon;

¹⁷the Arabah also, with the Jordan ¹as a border, from ^2aChinnereth ^beven as far as the sea of the Arabah, ^cthe Salt Sea, ³at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah on the east.

¹⁸“Then I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘^aYahweh your God has given you this land to possess it; ^ball you men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the sons of Israel.

¹⁹‘^aBut your wives and your little ones and your livestock (I know that you have ^bmuch livestock) shall remain in your cities which I have given you,

^20auntil Yahweh gives rest to your brothers as to you, and they also possess the land which Yahweh your God will give them beyond the Jordan. ^bThen you may return, every man to his possession which I have given you.’

²¹“And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, ‘Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings; so Yahweh shall do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross.

²²‘Do not fear them, for Yahweh your God ^ais the one fighting for you.’

Moses Pleads to Cross the Jordan

²³“I also pleaded with Yahweh at that time, saying,

²⁴‘O Lord Yahweh, You have begun to show Your slave ^aYour greatness and Your strong hand; for what ^bgod is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours?

²⁵‘Let me, I pray, cross over and see the ^agood land that is beyond the Jordan, ¹that good hill country and Lebanon.’

²⁶“But ^aYahweh was angry with me on your account and would not listen to me; and Yahweh said to me, ‘¹Enough! Speak to Me no more of this matter.

²⁷‘Go up to the top of ^aPisgah and lift up your eyes to the west and north and south and east, and see it with your eyes, ^bfor you shall not cross over this Jordan.

²⁸‘^aBut command Joshua and strengthen him and encourage him, ^bfor he shall go across ¹at the head of this people, and he will cause them to inherit the land which you will see.’

²⁹“So we remained in the valley opposite ^aBeth-peor.

CHAPTER 4

Keep the Commandments of Yahweh

¹“So now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which ^aI am teaching you to do, so that ^byou may live and go in and take possession of the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

²“^aYou shall not add to the word which ^bI am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I am commanding you.

³“^aYour eyes have seen what Yahweh has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed ¹them from among you.

⁴“But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive today, every one of you.

⁵“See, I have taught you statutes and judgments ^ajust as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.

⁶“You shall keep and do them, ^afor that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

⁷“For ^awhat great nation is there that has a god ^bso near to it as is Yahweh our God ^cwhenever we call on Him?

⁸“Or what great nation is there that has ^astatutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

⁹“Only ^akeep yourself and keep your soul very carefully, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart ^ball the days of your life. But ^cmake them known to your sons and to your grandsons.

¹⁰“Remember the day you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may cause them to hear My words ^aso they may learn to ¹fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may ^bteach their children.’

¹¹“And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, ^aand the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud, and dense gloom.

¹²“Then Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice.

¹³“So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to do, that is, ^athe Ten ¹Commandments; and ^bHe wrote them on two tablets of stone.

¹⁴“And Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it.

¹⁵“So ^akeep your souls very carefully, since you did not see any ^bform on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,

¹⁶lest you ^aact corruptly and ^bmake a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

¹⁷the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of ^aany winged bird that flies in the sky,

¹⁸the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth,

¹⁹and lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, ^aall the host of heaven, ^band be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which Yahweh your God has apportioned for all the peoples under the whole heaven.

²⁰“But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of ^athe iron furnace, from Egypt, to ^bbe a people for His own inheritance, as today.

²¹“^aNow Yahweh was angry with me on your account and swore that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.

²²“For ^aI will die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this ^bgood land.…