“Then we set out from Horeb (Sinai), and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men [into the land] before us, so that they may explore and search the area for us, and bring back to us word regarding the way we should go, and the cities we should enter.’

They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out.

and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried and protected you, just as a man carries his son, all along the way which you traveled until you arrived at this place.’

Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do, and struck you down in Seir as far as Hormah.

Now thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley, until that entire generation of the men of war had died from within the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them.

Moreover the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp, until they were all dead.

As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim (Cretans, later Philistines) who came from Caphtor (Crete) destroyed them and settled in their place.)

“Then at Jahaz, Sihon and all his people came out to meet us in battle.

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

You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the [very] heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom.

these are the testimonies (legal provisions) and the statutes and the judgments which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt,

beyond the Jordan in the Valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out from Egypt.

And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the leaders (heads) of your tribes and your elders;

Remember [with remorse] and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you left the land of Egypt until you arrived in this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

“So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

I took your sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it in the fire and thoroughly crushed it, grinding the metal thoroughly until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that came down from the mountain.

Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and they are there, just as the Lord commanded me.”

and what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place;

For the land which you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot like a garden of vegetables.

“You shall not do at all what we are doing here [in the camp] today, every man doing whatever is right in his [own] eyes.

You shall not eat leavened bread with it; instead, for seven days you shall eat the Passover with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction (for you left the land of Egypt in haste); [do this] so that all the days of your life you may remember [thoughtfully] the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.

but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence), you shall sacrifice the Passover [lamb] in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt.

and charges her [without cause] with shameful behavior and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’

When he found her in the [open] field, the engaged girl [may have] cried out for help, but there was no one to [hear and] save her.

because they did not meet you with bread (food) and water on the road as you came out of Egypt, and because they hired [to act] against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

“When you go out as an army [to fight] against your enemies, you shall keep yourselves from every evil [thing].

“If there is any man among you who is [ceremonially] unclean because of nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he shall not come back to the camp.

But when evening comes, he shall bathe in water, and at sundown he may return to the camp.

“You shall also have a place outside the camp to which you may go,

Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy (undefiled); and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

When you reached this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, but we defeated them;

your little ones, your wives, and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your camps, from the one who chops and gathers your firewood to the one who draws your water—

(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the nations along the way;

Then Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun.

He said,

“The Lord came from Sinai,
And dawned on them from Seir;
He shone forth from Mount Paran,
And He came from among ten thousand holy ones;
At His right hand was a flaming fire, a law, for them.

“He selected the best [land] for himself,
For there the leader’s portion was reserved;
Yet he came with the leaders of the people;
He carried out the justice (righteous will) of the Lord,
And His ordinances (judgments) with Israel.”