This is what Moses said to the assembly of Israel in the Transjordanian wastelands, the arid country opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di Zahab

This took place after the defeat of King Sihon of the Amorites, whose capital was in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, whose capital was in Ashtaroth, specifically in Edrei.

The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, "You have stayed in the area of this mountain long enough.

Get up now, resume your journey, heading for the Amorite hill country, to all its areas including the arid country, the highlands, the Shephelah, the Negev, and the coastal plain -- all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates.

Look! I have already given the land to you. Go, occupy the territory that I, the Lord, promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants."

But how can I alone bear up under the burden of your hardship and strife?

Select wise and practical men, those known among your tribes, whom I may appoint as your leaders."

So I chose as your tribal leaders wise and well-known men, placing them over you as administrators of groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and also as other tribal officials.

I furthermore admonished your judges at that time that they should pay attention to issues among your fellow citizens and judge fairly, whether between one citizen and another or a citizen and a resident foreigner.

They must not discriminate in judgment, but hear the lowly and the great alike. Nor should they be intimidated by human beings, for judgment belongs to God. If the matter being adjudicated is too difficult for them, they should bring it before me for a hearing.

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

So all of you approached me and said, "Let's send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there."

They left and went up to the hill country, coming to the Eshcol Valley, which they scouted out.

Then they took some of the produce of the land and carried it back down to us. They also brought a report to us, saying, "The land that the Lord our God is about to give us is good."

You complained among yourselves privately and said, "Because the Lord hates us he brought us from Egypt to deliver us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us!

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage by describing people who are more numerous and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven itself! Moreover, they said they saw Anakites there."

and in the desert, where you saw him carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place."

the one who was constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp. He appeared by fire at night and cloud by day, to show you the way you ought to go.

When the Lord heard you, he became angry and made this vow:

The exception is Caleb son of Jephunneh; he will see it and I will give him and his descendants the territory on which he has walked, because he has wholeheartedly followed me."

Also, your infants, who you thought would die on the way, and your children, who as yet do not know good from bad, will go there; I will give them the land and they will possess it.

But as for you, turn back and head for the desert by the way to the Red Sea."

Then you responded to me and admitted, "We have sinned against the Lord. We will now go up and fight as the Lord our God has told us to do." So you each put on your battle gear and prepared to go up to the hill country.

But the Lord told me: "Tell them this: 'Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you and you will be defeated by your enemies.'"

I spoke to you, but you did not listen. Instead you rebelled against the Lord and recklessly went up to the hill country.

The Amorite inhabitants of that area confronted you and chased you like a swarm of bees, striking you down from Seir as far as Hormah.

Then you came back and wept before the Lord, but he paid no attention to you whatsoever.

Then we turned and set out toward the desert land on the way to the Red Sea just as the Lord told me to do, detouring around Mount Seir for a long time.

You may purchase food to eat and water to drink from them.

So we turned away from our relatives the descendants of Esau, the inhabitants of Seir, turning from the desert route, from Elat and Ezion Geber, and traveling the way of the Moab wastelands.

Then the Lord said to me, "Do not harass Moab and provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as your territory. This is because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their possession.

(The Emites used to live there, a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites.

Previously the Horites lived in Seir but the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land it came to possess, the land the Lord gave them.)

Now, get up and cross the Wadi Zered." So we did so.

They are a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaites in advance of the Ammonites, so they dispossessed them and settled down in their place.

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

As for the Avvites who lived in settlements as far west as Gaza, Caphtorites who came from Crete destroyed them and settled down in their place.)

Get up, make your way across Wadi Arnon. Look! I have already delivered over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Go ahead! Take it! Engage him in war!

This very day I will begin to fill all the people of the earth with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach."

Sell me food for cash so that I can eat and sell me water to drink. Just allow me to go through on foot,

just as the descendants of Esau who live at Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us."

But King Sihon of Heshbon was unwilling to allow us to pass near him because the Lord our God had made him obstinate and stubborn so that he might deliver him over to you this very day.

The Lord said to me, "Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession."

When Sihon and all his troops emerged to encounter us in battle at Jahaz,

the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, along with his sons and everyone else.

At that time we seized all his cities and put every one of them under divine judgment, including even the women and children; we left no survivors.

We kept only the livestock and plunder from the cities for ourselves.

Next we set out on the route to Bashan, but King Og of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.

The Lord, however, said to me, "Don't be afraid of him because I have already given him, his whole army, and his land to you. You will do to him exactly what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon."

So the Lord our God did indeed give over to us King Og of Bashan and his whole army and we struck them down until not a single survivor was left.

All of these cities were fortified by high walls, gates, and locking bars; in addition there were a great many open villages.

We put all of these under divine judgment just as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon -- every occupied city, including women and children.

But all the livestock and plunder from the cities we kept for ourselves.

(the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion and the Amorites call it Senir),

all the cities of the plateau, all of Gilead and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remaining Rephaites. (It is noteworthy that his sarcophagus was made of iron. Does it not, indeed, still remain in Rabbath of the Ammonites? It is thirteen and a half feet long and six feet wide according to standard measure.)

This is the land we brought under our control at that time: The territory extending from Aroer by the Wadi Arnon and half the Gilead hill country with its cities I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites.

The rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to half the tribe of Manasseh. (All the region of Argob, that is, all Bashan, is called the land of Rephaim.

Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the Argob region as far as the border with the Geshurites and Maacathites (namely Bashan) and called it by his name, Havvoth-Jair, which it retains to this very day.)

To the Reubenites and Gadites I allocated the territory extending from Gilead as far as Wadi Arnon (the exact middle of the wadi was a boundary) all the way to the Wadi Jabbok, the Ammonite border.

The Arabah and the Jordan River were also a border, from the sea of Chinnereth to the sea of the Arabah (that is, the Salt Sea), beneath the watershed of Pisgah to the east.

But your wives, children, and livestock (of which I know you have many) may remain in the cities I have given you.

You must fight until the Lord gives your countrymen victory as he did you and they take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of the Jordan River. Then each of you may return to his own territory that I have given you."

"O, Lord God, you have begun to show me your greatness and strength. (What god in heaven or earth can rival your works and mighty deeds?)

Let me please cross over to see the good land on the other side of the Jordan River -- this good hill country and the Lebanon!"

But the Lord was angry at me because of you and would not listen to me. Instead, he said to me, "Enough of that! Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.

Go up to the top of Pisgah and take a good look to the west, north, south, and east, for you will not be allowed to cross the Jordan.

Commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because he will lead these people over and will enable them to inherit the land you will see."

Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

Look! I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord my God told me to do, so that you might carry them out in the land you are about to enter and possess.

So be sure to do them, because this will testify of your wise understanding to the people who will learn of all these statutes and say, "Indeed, this great nation is a very wise people."

And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this whole law that I am about to share with you today?

Again, however, pay very careful attention, lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.

You stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he said to me, "Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands. Then they will learn to revere me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children."

You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it and yet dark with a thick cloud.

And he revealed to you the covenant he has commanded you to keep, the ten commandments, writing them on two stone tablets.

Moreover, at that same time the Lord commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to keep in the land which you are about to enter and possess.

When you look up to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars -- the whole heavenly creation -- you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, for the Lord your God has assigned them to all the people of the world.

You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, to be his special people as you are today.

But the Lord became angry with me because of you and vowed that I would never cross the Jordan nor enter the good land that he is about to give you.

So I must die here in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are going over and will possess that good land.

Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he has made with you, and that you do not make an image of any kind, just as he has forbidden you.

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will surely and swiftly be removed from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be annihilated.

Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

There you will worship gods made by human hands -- wood and stone that can neither see, hear, eat, nor smell.

But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul.

In your distress when all these things happen to you in the latter days, if you return to the Lord your God and obey him

Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it.

Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it?

Or has God ever before tried to deliver a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, signs, wonders, war, strength, power, and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words.

Moreover, because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power

to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you and brought you here this day to give you their land as your property.

Today realize and carefully consider that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below -- there is no other!

Keep his statutes and commandments that I am setting forth today so that it may go well with you and your descendants and that you may enjoy longevity in the land that the Lord your God is about to give you as a permanent possession.

Anyone who accidentally killed someone without hating him at the time of the accident could flee to one of those cities and be safe.

These cities are Bezer, in the desert plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassehites.

These are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that Moses spoke to the Israelites after he had brought them out of Egypt,

in the Transjordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. (It is he whom Moses and the Israelites attacked after they came out of Egypt.