Deuteronomy 2:24–4:46

Fighting the Amorites

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

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

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

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

The Battle at Bashan

3When we turned and went up the road toward Bashan, Og king of Bashan and all his army came out to fight us at Edrei. ²The Lord said to me, “Don’t be afraid of Og, because I will hand him, his whole army, and his land over to you. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon.”

³So the Lord our God gave us Og king of Bashan and all his army; we defeated them and left no one alive. ⁴Then we captured all of Og’s cities, all sixty of them, and took the whole area of Argob, Og’s kingdom in Bashan. ⁵All these were strong cities, with high walls and gates with bars. And there were also many small towns with no walls. ⁶We completely destroyed them, just like the cities of Sihon king of Heshbon. We killed all the men, women, and children, ⁷but we kept all the cattle and valuable things from the cities for ourselves.

⁸So at that time we took the land east of the Jordan River, from the Arnon Ravine to Mount Hermon, from these two Amorite kings. ⁹(Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonian people, but the Amorites call it Senir.) ¹⁰We captured all the cities on the high plain and all of Gilead, and we took all of Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns in Og’s kingdom of Bashan. ¹¹(Only Og king of Bashan was left of the few Rephaites. His bed was made of iron, and it was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide! It is still in the Ammonite city of Rabbah.)

The Land Is Divided

¹²At that time we took this land to be our own. I gave the people of Reuben and Gad the land from Aroer by the Arnon Ravine, as well as half of the mountain country of Gilead and the cities in it. ¹³To the people of East Manasseh I gave the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og. (The area of Argob in Bashan was called the land of the Rephaites. ¹⁴Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole area of Argob, all the way to the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites. So that land was named for Jair, and even today Bashan is called the Towns of Jair.) ¹⁵I gave Gilead to Makir. ¹⁶I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the land that begins at Gilead and goes from the Arnon Ravine (the middle of the Arnon is the border) to the Jabbok River, which is the Ammonite border. ¹⁷The border on the west was the Jordan River in the Jordan Valley, and it goes from Lake Galilee to the Dead Sea west of Mount Pisgah.

¹⁸At that time I gave you this command: “The Lord your God has given you this land as your own. Now your fighting men must take their weapons, and you must lead the other Israelites across the river. ¹⁹Your wives, your young children, and your cattle may stay here. I know you have many cattle, and they may stay here in the cities I have given you, ²⁰until the Lord also gives your Israelite relatives a place to rest. They will receive the land the Lord your God has given them on the other side of the Jordan River. After that, you may each return to the land I have given you.”

²¹Then I gave this command to Joshua: “You have seen for yourself all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. The Lord will do the same thing to all the kingdoms where you are going. ²²Don’t be afraid of them, because the Lord your God will fight for you.”

Moses Cannot Enter the Land

²³Then I begged the Lord: ²⁴“Lord God, you have begun to show me, your servant, how great you are. You have great strength, and no other god in heaven or on earth can do the powerful things you do. There is no other god like you. ²⁵Please let me cross the Jordan River so that I may see the good land by the Jordan. I want to see the beautiful mountains and Lebanon.”

²⁶But the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, “That’s enough. Don’t talk to me anymore about it. ²⁷Climb to the top of Mount Pisgah and look west, north, south, and east. You can look at the land, but you will not cross the Jordan River. ²⁸Appoint Joshua and help him be brave and strong. He will lead the people across the river and give them the land that they are to inherit, but you can only look at it.” ²⁹So we stayed in the valley opposite Beth Peor.

Moses Tells Israel to Obey

4Now, Israel, listen to the laws and commands I will teach you. Obey them so that you will live and so that you will go over and take the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving to you. ²Don’t add to these commands, and don’t leave anything out, but obey the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

³You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how the Lord your God destroyed everyone among you who followed Baal in Peor. ⁴But all of you who continued following the Lord your God are still alive today.

⁵Look, I have taught you the laws and rules the Lord my God commanded me. Now you can obey the laws in the land you are entering, in the land you will take. ⁶Obey these laws carefully, in order to show the other nations that you have wisdom and understanding. When they hear about these laws, they will say, “This great nation of Israel is wise and understanding.” ⁷No other nation is as great as we are. Their gods do not come near them, but the Lord our God comes near when we pray to him. ⁸And no other nation has such good teachings and commands as those I am giving to you today.

⁹But be careful! Watch out and don’t forget the things you have seen. Don’t forget them as long as you live, but teach them to your children and grandchildren. ¹⁰Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Mount Sinai. He said to me, “Bring the people together so I can tell them what I have to say. Then they will respect me as long as they live in the land, and they will teach these things to their children.” ¹¹When you came and stood at the bottom of the mountain, it blazed with fire that reached to the sky, and black clouds made it very dark. ¹²The Lord spoke to you from the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you did not see him; there was only a voice. ¹³The Lord told you about his Agreement, the Ten Commandments. He told you to obey them, and he wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴Then the Lord commanded me to teach you the laws and rules that you must obey in the land you will take when you cross the Jordan River.

Laws About Idols

¹⁵Since the Lord spoke to you from the fire at Mount Sinai, but you did not see him, watch yourselves carefully! ¹⁶Don’t sin by making idols of any kind, and don’t make statues—of men or women, ¹⁷of animals on earth or birds that fly in the air, ¹⁸of anything that crawls on the ground, or of fish in the water below. ¹⁹When you look up at the sky, you see the sun, moon, and stars, and everything in the sky. But don’t bow down and worship them, because the Lord your God has made these things for all people everywhere. ²⁰But the Lord brought you out of Egypt, which tested you like a furnace for melting iron, and he made you his very own people, as you are now.

²¹The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan River to go into the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your own. ²²I will die here in this land and not cross the Jordan, but you will soon go across and take that good land. ²³Be careful. Don’t forget the Agreement of the Lord your God that he made with you, and don’t make any idols for yourselves, as the Lord your God has commanded you not to do. ²⁴The Lord your God is a jealous God, like a fire that burns things up.

²⁵Even after you have lived in the land a long time and have had children and grandchildren, don’t do evil things. Don’t make any kind of idol, and don’t do what the Lord your God says is evil, because that will make him angry. ²⁶If you do, I ask heaven and earth to speak against you this day that you will quickly be removed from this land that you are crossing the Jordan River to take. You will not live there long after that, but you will be completely destroyed. ²⁷The Lord will scatter you among the other nations. Only a few of you will be left alive, and those few will be in other nations where the Lord will send you. ²⁸There you will…