Deuteronomy 1

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab. It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the Israelites according to all that the LORD had commanded him for them, after the defeat of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and of Og king of Bashan at Edrei, who lived in Ashtaroth. Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, “The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Turn and set out, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and all its neighboring regions: the Arabah, the hill country, the Shephelah, the Negev, and the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates. Look, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and their descendants after them.’ At that time I said to you, ‘I cannot bear you alone. The LORD your God has multiplied you, and look, today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. May the LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as he has promised you! How can I bear your trouble, your burden, and your disputes alone? Provide for yourselves wise, discerning men who are known among your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.’ You answered me, ‘What you have proposed is good to do.’ So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and well-known men, and appointed them as heads over you: commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers for your tribes. At that time I commanded your judges, ‘Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who lives with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall fear no one, for judgment belongs to God. Bring to me any case that is too difficult for you, and I will hear it.’ At that time I commanded you all the things you were to do. We set out from Horeb and went through all that great and fearsome wilderness you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God had commanded us. We came to Kadesh-barnea. I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up and possess it, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’ All of you came near to me and said, ‘Let us send men ahead of us to explore the land for us and bring us a report of the way we should go up and the cities we should enter.’ The proposal was good in my eyes, and I took twelve men from among you, one man from each tribe. They turned and went up into the hill country, came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied out the land. They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us. They brought us a report and said, ‘The land that the LORD our God is giving us is good.’ But you were unwilling to go up and rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, ‘Because the LORD hates us, he brought us out of the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have melted our hearts by saying, “The people are greater and taller than we are. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. We also saw the sons of the Anakim there.”’ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, and do not fear them. The LORD your God, who goes before you, will himself fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way you went until you came to this place.’ Yet in this matter you did not trust the LORD your God, who went before you on the way to seek out a place for you to camp, in fire by night to show you the way you should go, and in a cloud by day. The LORD heard the sound of your words, was angry, and swore, saying, ‘Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and his sons I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has followed the LORD fully.’ The LORD was also angry with me because of you, saying, ‘You too shall not enter there. Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, shall enter there. Strengthen him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. Your little ones, whom you said would become plunder, and your children, who today do not know good or evil, shall enter there. I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.’ You answered me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight according to all that the LORD our God has commanded us.’ Each of you strapped on his weapons of war, and you thought it easy to go up into the hill country. But the LORD said to me, ‘Tell them, “Do not go up or fight, for I am not among you, lest you be defeated before your enemies.”’ I spoke to you, but you did not listen. You rebelled against the command of the LORD, acted presumptuously, and went up into the hill country. The Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do. They struck you down in Seir as far as Hormah. You returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. You stayed at Kadesh many days, all the days you stayed there.

Rights and attribution