Be sure to keep a distance of about 2,000 cubits between you and it. Don't come near it, so you can be certain where you're going, since you haven't passed this way before."

But the Israelis responded to the Hivites, "Perhaps you live in our midst. If this is so, how can we make a treaty with you?"

"Look how the LORD has let me survive, as you can see, these 45 years since the time when the LORD said this through Moses, while Israel was wandering through the wilderness. And look! I'm here today my eighty-fifth birthday!

I'm still as strong today as I was the day Moses commissioned me. I'm as strong today as I was then, and I can go out to battle and come back successful.

"This is what the entire community of the LORD has to say: "What is this treacherous act by which you have acted deceitfully against the God of Israel by turning away from following the LORD today, and by building yourselves an altar today, so you can rebel against the LORD?

Stand very strong, then, so you can obey and carry out everything written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning neither to the right nor to the left of it.