Deuteronomy 2–4

Chapter 2

¹“Then we turned, and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the Lord told me; and for many days we went about Mount Seir. ²Then the Lord said to me, ³‘You have been going about this mountain country long enough; turn northward. ⁴And command the people, You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren the sons of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So take good heed; ⁵do not contend with them; for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. ⁶You shall purchase food from them for money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water of them for money, that you may drink. ⁷For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands; he knows your going through this great wilderness; these forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.’ ⁸So we went on, away from our brethren the sons of Esau who live in Seir, away from the Arabah road from Elath and Ezion-geber.

“And we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab. ⁹And the Lord said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot for a possession.’ ¹⁰(The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; ¹¹like the Anakim they are also known as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. ¹²The Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them, and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their stead; as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the Lord gave to them.) ¹³‘Now rise up, and go over the brook Zered.’ So we went over the brook Zered. ¹⁴And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. ¹⁵For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from the camp, until they had perished.

¹⁶“So when all the men of war had perished and were dead from among the people, ¹⁷the Lord said to me, ¹⁸‘This day you are to pass over the boundary of Moab at Ar; ¹⁹and when you approach the frontier of the sons of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’ ²⁰(That also is known as a land of Rephaim; Rephaim formerly lived there, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, ²¹a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the Lord destroyed them before them; and they dispossessed them, and settled in their stead; ²²as he did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them, and they dispossessed them, and settled in their stead even to this day. ²³As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their stead.) ²⁴‘Rise up, take your journey, and go over the valley of the Arnon; behold, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land; begin to take possession, and contend with him in battle. ²⁵This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’

²⁶“So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon the king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying, ²⁷‘Let me pass through your land; I will go only by the road, I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left. ²⁸You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on foot, ²⁹as the sons of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I go over the Jordan into the land which the Lord our God gives to us.’ ³⁰But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as at this day. ³¹And the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you; begin to take possession, that you may occupy his land.’ ³²Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Jahaz. ³³And the Lord our God gave him over to us; and we defeated him and his sons and all his people. ³⁴And we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed every city, men, women, and children; we left none remaining; ³⁵only the cattle we took as spoil for ourselves, with the booty of the cities which we captured. ³⁶From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and from the city that is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was not a city too high for us; the Lord our God gave all into our hands. ³⁷Only to the land of the sons of Ammon you did not draw near, that is, to all the banks of the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the Lord our God forbade us.

Chapter 3

¹“Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edre-i. ²But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him; for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.’ ³So the Lord our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people; and we smote him until no survivor was left to him. ⁴And we took all his cities at that time—there was not a city which we did not take from them—sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. ⁵All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages. ⁶And we utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon the king of Heshbon, destroying every city, men, women, and children. ⁷But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities we took as our booty. ⁸So we took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon ⁹(the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir), ¹⁰all the cities of the tableland and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edre-i, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. ¹¹(For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)

¹²“When we took possession of this land at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory beginning at Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead with its cities; ¹³the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, that is, all the region of Argob, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (The whole of that Bashan is called the land of Rephaim. ¹⁴Jair the Manassite took all the region of Argob, that is, Bashan, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Ma-acathites, and called the villages after his own name, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.) ¹⁵To Machir I gave Gilead, ¹⁶and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a boundary, as far over as the river Jabbok, the boundary of the Ammonites; ¹⁷the Arabah also, with the Jordan as the boundary, from Chinnereth as far as the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east.

¹⁸“And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess; all your men of valor shall pass over armed before your brethren the people of Israel. ¹⁹But your wives, your little ones, and your cattle (I know that you have many cattle) shall remain in the cities which I have given you, ²⁰until the Lord gives rest to your brethren, as to you, and they also occupy the land which the Lord your God gives them beyond the Jordan; then you shall return every man to his possession which I have given you.’ ²¹And I commanded Joshua at that time, ‘Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings; so will the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you are going over. ²²You shall not fear them; for it is the Lord your God who fights for you.’

²³“And I besought the Lord at that time, saying, ²⁴‘O Lord GOD, thou hast only begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as thine? ²⁵Let me go over, I pray, and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that goodly hill country, and Lebanon.’ ²⁶But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and would not hearken to me; and the Lord said to me, ‘Let it suffice you; speak no more to me of this matter. ²⁷Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and behold it with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan. ²⁸But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him; for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land which you shall see.’ ²⁹So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Chapter 4

¹“And now, O Israel, give heed to the statutes and the ordinances which I teach you, and do them; that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you. ²You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. ³Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor; for the Lord your God destroyed from among you…