Moses Talks to the People of Israel

1 This is the message that Moses gave the people of Israel. He told them these things while they were in the Jordan Valley, in the desert east of the Jordan River. This was across from Suph, between the desert of Paran and the cities Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ²The trip from Mount Horeb (Sinai) through the Seir mountains to Kadesh Barnea takes only eleven days. ³But it was 40 years from the time the people of Israel left Egypt until the time they came to this place. On the first day of the eleventh month of the 40th year, Moses spoke to the people. Moses told them all the things the Lord commanded. ⁴This was after the Lord defeated Sihon and Og. (Sihon was the king of the Amorite people. Sihon lived in Heshbon. Og was the king of Bashan. Og lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei.) ⁵The people of Israel were on the east side of the Jordan River in the land of Moab, and Moses began to explain the things that God commanded. Moses said: ⁶“At Mount Horeb (Sinai) the Lord our God spoke to us. He said, ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough. ⁷Go to the hill country where the Amorite people live. Go to all the places around there. Go to the Jordan Valley, the hill country, the western slopes, the Negev,* and the seacoast. Go through the land of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the great river, the Euphrates. ⁸Look, I am giving you that land. Go and take it. I promised to give that land to your ancestors* —Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I promised to give that land to them and to their descendants.* ’”

Moses Chooses Leaders

⁹Moses said, “At that time I told you I couldn’t take care of you by myself. ¹⁰And now, there are even more of you! The Lord your God has added more and more people, so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky! ¹¹May the Lord, the God of your ancestors,* make you 1,000 times more than you are now! May he bless you like he promised! ¹²But I couldn’t take care of you and solve all your arguments by myself. ¹³So {I told you:} ‘Choose some men from each family group, and I will make them leaders over you. Choose wise men that have understanding and experience.’ ¹⁴“And you said, ‘That is a good thing to do.’ ¹⁵“So I took the wise and experienced men you chose from your family groups, and I made them your leaders. In this way, I gave you leaders over 1,000 people, leaders over 100 people, leaders over 50 people, leaders over 10 people. I also gave you officers for each of your family groups. ¹⁶“At that time, I told those judges, ‘Listen to the arguments between your people. Be fair when you judge each case. It does not matter if the problem is between two Israelite people or between an Israelite and a foreigner. You must judge each case fairly. ¹⁷When you judge, you must not think that one person is more important than another person. You must judge every person the same. Don’t be afraid of anyone, because your decision is from God. But if there is a case too hard for you to judge, then bring it to me and I will judge it.’ ¹⁸At that same time, I also told you all the other things you must do.

The Spies Go to Canaan

¹⁹“Then we obeyed the Lord our God. We left Mount Horeb (Sinai) and traveled toward the hill country of the Amorite people. We went through that big and terrible desert that you saw. We came to Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰Then I said to you, ‘You have now come to the hill country of the Amorites. The Lord our God will give us this country. ²¹Look, there it is! Go up and take the land for your own! The Lord, the God of your ancestors,* told you to do this. So don’t be afraid. Don’t worry about anything!’ ²²“But you all came to me and said, ‘Let’s send some men to look at the land first. They can look for all the strong and weak places there. Then they can come back and tell us the way we should go. They can also tell us about the cities we will come to.’ ²³“I thought that was a good idea. So I chose twelve men from among you, one man from each family group. ²⁴Then those men left and went up to the hill country. They came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it. ²⁵They took some of the fruit from that land and brought it back to us. They told us about the land. They said, ‘The Lord our God is giving us a good land!’ ²⁶“But you refused to go into the land. You refused to obey the Lord your God. ²⁷You went to your tents and began to complain. You said, ‘The Lord hates us! He brought us out of the land of Egypt just to let the Amorite people destroy us! ²⁸Where can we go now? Our brothers (the twelve spies) have made us afraid with their report. They said: The people there are bigger and taller than we are! The cities are big and have walls as high as the sky! And we saw giants* there!’ ²⁹“So I said to you, ‘Don’t be upset! Don’t be afraid of those people! ³⁰The Lord your God will go before you and fight for you. He will do this the same as he did in Egypt. You saw him go before you there ³¹and in the desert. You saw how the Lord your God carried you, like a man carries his son. The Lord brought you safely all the way to this place.’ ³²“But you still did not trust the Lord your God! ³³When you were traveling, he went before you to find a place for you to put your camp. He went before you in a fire by night and in a cloud by day to show you which way you should go.

People Not Allowed to Enter Canaan

³⁴“The Lord heard what you said, and he became angry. He made a strong promise. He said, ³⁵‘None of you evil people who are living now will go into the good land that I promised to your ancestors.* ³⁶Only Caleb son of Jephunneh will see that land. I will give Caleb the land he walked on. And I will give that land to Caleb’s descendants.* Why? Because Caleb did all that I commanded.’ ³⁷“The Lord was also angry with me because of you. He said to me, ‘Moses, you can’t enter the land, either. ³⁸But your helper, Joshua son of Nun will go into the land. Encourage Joshua, because he will lead the people of Israel to take the land for their own.’ ³⁹“And the Lord said to us, ‘You said your little children would be taken by your enemies. But those children will go into the land. {I don’t blame your children for your mistake, because} they are still too young to know if something is right or wrong. So I will give the land to them. Your children will take the land for their own. ⁴⁰But you—you must turn around and go back to the desert on the road that leads to the Red Sea.’ ⁴¹“Then you said, ‘Moses, we have sinned against the Lord. But now we will go and fight, like the Lord our God commanded us before.’ Then each of you put on your weapons. You thought it would be easy to go and take the hill country. ⁴²“But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell the people not to go up there and fight. Why? Because I will not be with them, and their enemies will defeat them!’ ⁴³“I spoke to you, but you did not listen. You refused to obey the Lord’s command. You thought you could use your own power. So you went up into the hill country. ⁴⁴But the Amorite people living there came out to fight against you. They were like a swarm of bees chasing you. They chased you all the way from Seir to Hormah. ⁴⁵Then you came back and cried to the Lord for help. But the Lord refused to listen to you. ⁴⁶So you stayed at Kadesh a long time.

Negev The desert area south of Judah. ancestors Literally, “fathers,” meaning a person’s parents, grandparents, and all the people they are descended from. descendants A person’s children and their future families. giants Literally, “Anakites,” descendants of Anak, a family famous for tall and powerful fighting men. See Num. 13:33.

Israel Wanders through the Desert

2 “Then we did what the Lord told me to do. We went back into the desert on the road that leads to the Red Sea. We traveled for many days to go around the Seir* mountains. ²Then the Lord said to me, ³’You have traveled around these mountains long enough. Turn north. ⁴Tell these things to the people: You will pass through the land of Seir. This land belongs to your relatives, the descendants* of Esau. They will be afraid of you. Be very careful. ⁵Don’t fight them. I will not give you any of their land—not even a foot of it. Why? Because I gave the hill country of Seir to Esau to keep as his own. ⁶You must pay the people of Esau for any food you eat or water you drink there. ⁷Remember that the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He knows about your walking through this great desert. The Lord your God has been with you these 40 years. You have always had everything you needed.’ ⁸“So we passed by our relatives, the people of Esau living there in Seir. We left the road that leads from the Jordan Valley to the towns of Elath and Ezion Geber. We turned onto the road that goes to the desert in Moab.

Israel at Ar

⁹“The Lord said to me, ‘Don’t bother the people of Moab. Don’t start a war against them. I will not give you any of their land. They are the descendants of Lot,* and I gave them the city of Ar.’” (¹⁰In the past, the Emite people lived in Ar. They were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakite* people. ¹¹The Anakites were part of the Rephaite people. People thought the Emites were also Rephaites. But the people of Moab called them Emites. ¹²The Horite people also lived in Seir before, but Esau’s people took their land. Esau’s people destroyed the Horites and settled on their land. That is the same thing the people of Israel did to the people in the land that the Lord gave them for their own.) ¹³“The Lord told me, ‘Now, go to the other side of Zered Valley.’ So we crossed Zered Valley. ¹⁴It was 38 years from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until the time we crossed Zered Valley. All the fighting men of that generation in our camp had died. The Lord had sworn (promised) that that would happen. ¹⁵The Lord was against those men until they were all dead and gone from our camp. ¹⁶“After all the fighting men were dead and gone, ¹⁷the Lord said to me, ¹⁸‘Today you must cross the border at Ar and go into Moab. ¹⁹You will go near the Ammonite people. Don’t bother them. Don’t fight with them, because I will not give you their land. Why? Because they are descendants* of Lot, and I have given that land to them.’” ²⁰(That country is also known as the Land of Rephaim. The Rephaite people lived there in the past. The people of Ammon called them the Zamzummites. ²¹There were many Zamzummites, and they were very strong. They were tall, like the Anakite* people. But the Lord helped the Ammonite people destroy the Zamzummites. The Ammonite people took that land and live there now. ²²God did the same thing for Esau’s people. In the past, the Horite people lived in Seir (Edom). But Esau’s people destroyed the Horites, and Esau’s descendants still live there today. ²³God did the same thing for some people from Crete. The Avvite people lived in the towns around Gaza. But some people came from Crete and destroyed the Avvites. Those people from Crete took that land and live there now.)

Fighting the Amorite People

²⁴“The Lord told me, ‘Get ready to go across Arnon Valley. I will let you defeat Sihon the Amorite, the king of Heshbon. I will let you take his country. So fight against him and take his land. ²⁵Today I will make all people everywhere afraid of you. They will hear the news about you, and they will be afraid and shake with fear.’ ²⁶“While we were in the desert of Kedemoth, I sent messengers to Sihon, the king of Heshbon. The messengers offered peace to Sihon. They said, ²⁷‘Let us go through your land. We will stay on the road. We will not turn off the road to the right or to the left. ²⁸We will pay you in silver for any food we eat or any water we drink. We only want to march through your country. ²⁹Let us go through your land until we go across the Jordan River into the land that the Lord our God is giving us. Other people have let us go through their land—the people of Esau living in Seir and the Moabite people living in Ar.’ ³⁰“But Sihon, the king of Heshbon, would not let us pass through his country. The Lord your God had made him very stubborn. The Lord did this so he could let you defeat King Sihon. And today, we know that really happened! ³¹“The Lord said to me, ‘I am giving King Sihon and his country to you. Now, go take his land!’ ³²“Then King Sihon and all his people came out to fight against us at Jahaz. ³³But the Lord our God gave him to us. We defeated King Sihon, his sons, and all his people. ³⁴We captured all the cities that belonged to King Sihon at that time. We completely destroyed the people in every city—the men, women, and children. We did not leave anyone alive! ³⁵We took only the cattle and the valuable things from those cities. ³⁶We defeated the town of Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Valley and the other town in the middle of that valley. The Lord let us defeat all the cities between the Arnon Valley and Gilead. No city was too strong for us. ³⁷But you did not go near the land that belongs to the people of Ammon. You did not go near the shores of the Jabbok River or the cities of the hill country. You did not go near any place that the Lord our God would not let us have.

Seir Another name for Edom. descendants A person’s children and their future families. descendants of Lot Lot’s sons were Moab and Ammon. See Gen. 19:30–38. Anakite(s) Descendants of Anak, a family famous for tall and powerful fighting men. See Num. 13:33.