Deuteronomy 9

Hear, O Israel: You are about to cross the Jordan today, to enter and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ Know therefore today that the LORD your God is the one who crosses over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you. You shall dispossess them and make them perish quickly, as the LORD has told you. When the LORD your God drives them out from before you, do not say in your heart, ‘Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.’ It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are entering to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is dispossessing them before you, and to establish the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Know therefore that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. Remember, and do not forget, how you provoked the LORD your God to anger in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. At Horeb you provoked the LORD to anger, and the LORD was angry enough with you to destroy you. When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water. The LORD gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God. On them were all the words that the LORD had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. At the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. The LORD said to me, ‘Rise, go down quickly from here, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them. They have made a cast image for themselves.’ The LORD spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and look, they are a stiff-necked people. Leave me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. I will make of you a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’ I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. I saw that you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made a cast calf for yourselves and had quickly turned aside from the way the LORD had commanded you. I took hold of the two tablets, threw them from my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. I fell down before the LORD, as before, forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing evil in the LORD’s eyes to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and wrath with which the LORD was angry against you, to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also. The LORD was also very angry with Aaron, to destroy him. I prayed for Aaron also at that time. I took your sin, the calf you had made, and burned it with fire. I crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was fine as dust, and threw its dust into the stream that came down from the mountain. At Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah you also provoked the LORD to anger. When the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You did not believe him or obey his voice. You have been rebellious against the LORD since the day I came to know you. I fell down before the LORD those forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate, because the LORD had said he would destroy you. I prayed to the LORD and said, ‘Lord GOD, do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you redeemed in your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at this people’s stubbornness, wickedness, and sin, lest the land from which you brought us out say, “Because the LORD was unable to bring them into the land he promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” But they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.’

Rights and attribution