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

The Land of Ar

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

¹³And the Lord said to me, “Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.” So we crossed the valley. ¹⁴It had been thirty-eight years from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, all the fighting men from that time had died, as the Lord had promised would happen. ¹⁵The Lord continued to work against them to remove them from the camp until they were all dead.

¹⁶When the last of those fighting men had died, ¹⁷the Lord said to me, ¹⁸“Today you will pass by Ar, on the border of Moab. ¹⁹When you come near the people of Ammon, don’t bother them or go to war against them, because I will not give you any of their land as your own. I have given it to the descendants of Lot for their own.”

²⁰(That land was also thought to be a land of the Rephaites, because those people used to live there, but the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹They were strong people, and there were many of them; they were very tall, like the Anakites. The Lord destroyed the Zamzummites, and the Ammonites forced them out of the land and took their place. ²²The Lord did the same thing for the descendants of Esau, who lived in Edom, when he destroyed the Horites. The Edomites forced them out of the land and took their place, and they live there to this day. ²³The Cretan people came from Crete and destroyed the Avvites, who lived in towns all the way to Gaza; the Cretans destroyed them and took their place.)

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