“I said to you at that time: I can’t bear the responsibility for you on my own.

I said to you: You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.

“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let’s send men ahead of us, so that they may explore the land for us and bring us back a report about the route we should go up and the cities we will come to.’

You grumbled in your tents and said, ‘The Lord brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites so they would destroy us, because He hated us.

“So I said to you: Don’t be terrified or afraid of them!

“The Lord was angry with me also because of you and said: ‘You will not enter there either.

Your little children, whom you said would be plunder, your sons who don’t know good from evil, will enter there. I will give them the land, and they will take possession of it.

“But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them: Don’t go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from being defeated by your enemies.’

The Lord then said to me,

The Lord said to me, ‘Show no hostility toward Moab, and do not provoke them to battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, since I have given Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot.’”

“The Lord said, ‘Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.’ So we crossed the Zered Valley.

“The Lord also said, ‘Get up, move out, and cross the Arnon Valley. See, I have handed Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land over to you. Begin to take possession of it; engage him in battle.

“Then the Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land to you. Begin to take possession of it.’

But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.’

“But the Lord was angry with me on account of you and would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, ‘That’s enough! Do not speak to Me again about this matter.

The day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people before Me, and I will let them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth and may instruct their children.’

Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am proclaiming as you hear them today. Learn and follow them carefully.

At that time I was standing between the Lord and you to report the word of the Lord to you, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain. And He said:

You said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and greatness, and we have heard His voice from the fire. Today we have seen that God speaks with a person, yet he still lives.

“The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me. He said to me, ‘I have heard the words that these people have spoken to you. Everything they have said is right.

by driving out all your enemies before you, as the Lord has said.

The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them and you have heard it said about them, ‘Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?’

“The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go down immediately from here. For your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way that I commanded them; they have made a cast image for themselves.’

The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people.

When the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, He said, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you’; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not believe or obey Him.

“The Lord said to me at that time, ‘Cut two stone tablets like the first ones and come to Me on the mountain and make a wooden ark.

Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up. Continue your journey ahead of the people, so that they may enter and possess the land I swore to give their fathers.’

“If you hear it said about one of your cities the Lord your God is giving you to live in,

that wicked men have sprung up among you, led the inhabitants of their city astray, and said, ‘Let us go and worship other gods,’ which you have not known,

This is what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die!’

Then the Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well.

The Lord will take you back in ships to Egypt by a route that I said you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to his entire land.

The Lord your God is the One who will cross ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will drive them out. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, as the Lord has said.

Moses then summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you will go with this people into the land the Lord swore to give to their fathers. You will enable them to take possession of it.

The Lord said to Moses, “The time of your death is now approaching. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the tent of meeting so that I may commission him.” When Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the tent of meeting,

The Lord said to Moses, “You are about to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon commit adultery with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will abandon Me and break the covenant I have made with them.

He said: “I will hide My face from them;
I will see what will become of them,
for they are a perverse generation—
unfaithful children.

“I would have said: I will cut them to pieces
and blot out the memory of them from mankind,

he said to them, “Take to heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to carefully follow all the words of this law.

He said:

The Lord came from Sinai
and appeared to them from Seir;
He shone on them from Mount Paran
and came with ten thousand holy ones,
with lightning from His right hand for them.

He said this about Judah:

Lord, hear Judah’s cry and bring him to his people.
He fights for his cause with his own hands,
but may You be a help against his foes.

He said about Levi:

Your Thummim and Urim belong to Your faithful one;
You tested him at Massah
and contended with him at the waters of Meribah.

He said about his father and mother,
“I do not regard them.”
He disregarded his brothers
and didn’t acknowledge his sons,
for they kept Your word
and maintained Your covenant.

He said about Benjamin:

The Lord’s beloved rests securely on Him.
He shields him all day long,
and he rests on His shoulders.

He said about Joseph:

May his land be blessed by the Lord
with the dew of heaven’s bounty
and the watery depths that lie beneath;

He said about Zebulun:

Rejoice, Zebulun, in your journeys,
and Issachar, in your tents.

He said about Gad:

The one who enlarges Gad’s territory
will be blessed.
He lies down like a lion
and tears off an arm or even a head.

He said about Dan:

Dan is a young lion,
leaping out of Bashan.

He said about Naphtali:

Naphtali, enjoying approval,
full of the Lord’s blessing,
take possession to the west and the south.

He said about Asher:

May Asher be the most blessed of the sons;
may he be the most favored among his brothers
and dip his foot in olive oil.

The Lord then said to him, “This is the land I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross into it.”

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, as the Lord had said.