It is [only] eleven days’ journey from Horeb (Mount Sinai) by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan’s border; yet Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years before crossing the border and entering Canaan, the promised land].

So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and made them leaders over you, commanders of thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and officers (administrators) for your tribes.

You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear and pay attention to the [cases of the] least [important] as well as the great. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you [to judge], you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’

The plan pleased me and I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe.

Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they reported back to us, and said, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is about to give us.’

“Then we turned and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, just as the Lord had told me; and we circled Mount Seir for many days.

At the same time we took all his cities and utterly destroyed every city—men, women and children. We left no survivor.

We took only the cattle as plunder for ourselves and the spoil of the cities which we had captured.

From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the city which is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was no city [whose wall was] too high and too strong for us; the Lord our God handed over everything to us.

We captured 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.

But we took all the cattle and the spoil of the cities as plunder for ourselves.

“So we took the land at that time from the hand of the two kings [Sihon and Og] of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon

“So we took possession of this land at that time. I gave the territory from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, along with half of the hill country of Gilead and its cities to the Reubenites and to the Gadites.

Jair the son (descendant) of Manasseh took all the region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, that is Bashan, and called it after his own name, Havvoth (the villages of) Jair, as it is called to this day.)

They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who reigned across the Jordan to the east,

So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my two hands and smashed them before your very eyes!

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.

If the place which the Lord your God chooses to put His Name (Presence) is too far away from you, then you may slaughter [animals] from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your [city] gates whatever you wish.

If the place where the Lord your God chooses to set His Name (Presence) is a great distance from you and you are not able to carry your tithe, because the Lord your God has blessed you [with such an abundance],

“If any case is too difficult for you to judge—between one kind of homicide and another, between one kind of lawsuit and another, between one kind of assault and another, being controversial issues in your courts—then you shall arise and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.

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,’

and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife,

There you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them.

and we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

Then the Lord your God shall make you abundantly prosperous in everything that you do, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your land; for the Lord will again delight over you for good, just as He delighted over your fathers,

“For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.

“As an eagle that protects its nest,
That flutters over its young,
He spread out His wings and took them,
He carried them on His pinions.

“And He will say, ‘Where are their gods,
The rock in which they took refuge?