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 Dizahab. It is eleven days'
journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. In
the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses
spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the LORD had
given him in commandment to them, after he had defeated Sihon the
king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of
Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and in Edrei. Beyond the Jordan, in
the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, “The
LORD our God said to us in Horeb, ‘You have stayed long enough at
this mountain. Turn and take your journey, and go to the hill
country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah,
in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and by the
seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the
great river, the river Euphrates. See, I have set the land before
you. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore to
your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them
and to their offspring after them.’
“At that time I said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by
myself. The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are
today 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 by myself the
weight and burden of you and your strife? Choose for your tribes
wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them
as your heads.’ And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have
spoken is good for us to do.’ So I took the heads of your tribes,
wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you,
commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of
fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes.
And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between
your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother
or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment.
You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be
intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's. And the case that
is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.
“Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and
terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country
of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us. And we came to
Kadesh-barnea. And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill
country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. See,
the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up, take
possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do
not fear or be dismayed.’ Then all of you came near me and said,
‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us
and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the
cities into which we shall come.’ The thing seemed good to me, and
I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. And they
turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of
Eshcol and spied it out. And they took in their hands some of the
fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word
again and said, ‘It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving
us.’
“Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the
LORD your God. And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because
the LORD hated us he has 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 made our hearts melt, saying, “The
people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and
fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the
Anakim there.”’ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid
of them. The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight
for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in
the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried
you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you
came to this place.’ Yet in spite of this word you did not believe
the LORD your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a
place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by
day, to show you by what way you should go.
“And the LORD heard your words and was angered, and he swore,
‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good
land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of
Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will
give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly
followed the LORD!’ Even with me the LORD was angry on your account
and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. Joshua the son of Nun,
who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall
cause Israel to inherit it. And as for your little ones, who you
said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no
knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I
will give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn, and
journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’
“Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD. We
ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded
us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and
thought it easy to go up into the hill country. And the LORD said
to me, ‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your
midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’ So I spoke to
you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command
of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country. Then
the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you
and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as
Hormah. And you returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD did
not listen to your voice or give ear to you. So you remained at
Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.
