Chapter 2

The People Travel North. ¹ Then we turned back and set out for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea, as the Lord had instructed me. We traveled around the highlands of Seir for many days.

² Then the Lord spoke to me, saying, ³ “You have been going around these highlands long enough. Turn to the north ⁴ and command the people: ‘You are to pass through the territory of your kin, the children of Esau,^[a] who dwell in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so be very careful. ⁵ Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a single foot, for I have given Esau possession of the highlands of Seir. ⁶ You are to purchase your food with silver, and you will also purchase your drinking water with silver. ⁷ The Lord, your God, has blessed you in all your undertakings, and he has watched over your journey through this great wilderness these forty years. The Lord, your God, has been with you, and you have lacked for nothing.’ ”

⁸ So we went on, bypassing our kin, the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road that comes up from Elath and Ezion-geber and traveled along the desert road of Moab.

Bypassing Moab. ⁹ Then the Lord said to me, “Do not provoke the Moabites nor fight with them, for I will not give you their land as a possession. I have given the Ar to the children of Lot as a possession.” ¹⁰ (The Emim lived there in days of old, they were a great and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim. ¹¹ Like the Anakim they were considered to be Rephaim, but the Moabites called them the Emim. ¹² The Horites lived in Seir in days of old, but the children of Esau drove them out from before themselves and destroyed them, settling where they had lived, just as Israel did in the land that the Lord had given them to possess.)

¹³ “Now rise up and cross the Valley of the Zered.” So we crossed the Valley of the Zered. ¹⁴ It was thirty-eight years from when we left Kadesh-barnea until when we crossed over the Valley of the Zered. During this time the entire generation of men of war perished in the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. ¹⁵ For the hand of the Lord was set against them, to wipe them out from the camp until they were consumed. ¹⁶ And so the men of war among the people perished.

¹⁷ Bypassing Ammon. Then the Lord spoke to me, saying, ¹⁸ “Today you will cross over the Ar,^[b] the boundary of Moab. ¹⁹ When you come up against the Ammonites, do not harass nor provoke them, for I will not give you the land of the Ammonites as a possession. I have given it to the children of Lot as a possession.” ²⁰ (It is considered to be the land of the Rephaim, for the Rephaim lived in it in days of old, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummin. ²¹ They were a great and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim, but the Lord destroyed them before them. They drove them out and settled in their place. ²² He had done the same for the children of Esau in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them. They drove them out and live where they had lived to the present. ²³ The Avvim, who lived in villages up to Gaza,^[c] were destroyed by the Caphtorim who came from Caphtor. They dwell in their place.)

²⁴ Defeat of Sihon.“Rise, set out and cross over the Valley of the Arnon. I have given Sihon the Amorite, the king of Heshbon, and his land into your hands. Start to occupy it and do battle with him. ²⁵ From today on I will place terror and fear of you in all of the nations under the heavens. Whoever hears about you will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

²⁶ I sent messengers from the Desert of Kedemoth to Sihon, the king of Heshbon, with words of peace saying, ²⁷ “Let me pass through your land. I will travel on the road, and I will not turn either to the right or the left. ²⁸ You can sell us food for silver so that we might eat, and water for silver so that we might drink, only let me pass through on foot. ²⁹ This is what the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me. Then I will pass over the Jordan into the land that the Lord, our God, has given us.” ³⁰ But Sihon, the king of Heshbon, would not let us pass through, for the Lord had hardened his spirit and made his heart stubborn so that he might deliver him into your hands, as he has today.

³¹ Then the Lord said to me, “I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land to you. Now begin to take it, so that you may inherit his land.” ³² Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to give battle at Jahaz. ³³ The Lord, our God, delivered him over to us. We killed him and his sons and all his people. ³⁴ It was then that we captured all of his cities and completely wiped out the men, the women, and the children of all the cities.^[d] We left nothing alive ³⁵ except for the cattle that we took as pillage along with the spoils from the cities that we captured. ³⁶ There was not a city that was too strong for us, from Aroer on the shore of the Arnon River and the city that is in the valley, all the way up to Gilead. The Lord, our God, delivered everything into our hands. ³⁷ But as the Lord, our God, had commanded, you did not enter the land of the Ammonites, nor the land along the River Jabbok, nor the cities in the hill country.

Chapter 3

Defeat of Og. ¹ Next we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out against us, he and all his people, to give battle at Edrei. ² But the Lord said to me, “Do not fear him, for I will deliver him and all his people and his land into your hands. You will do the same thing to him that you did to Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.” ³ The Lord, our God, delivered Og, the king of Bashan, and all his people into our hands. We continued to attack them until there was not a single survivor left. ⁴ This was when we captured all of his cities. There was not a single city that we did not take from them, sixty in all, the entire region of the Argob, the kingdom of Og of Bashan. ⁵ All of these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars. There were also a great number of unfortified cities. ⁶ We totally destroyed them, just as we had destroyed Sihon, the king of Heshbon, wiping out the men, women, and children from every city. ⁷ But we took all the cattle and spoils of the cities as pillage.

⁸ This was when we took the land of two of the kings of the Amorites from their hands, land on the east of the Jordan, from the Arnon River to Mount Hermon. ⁹ (The Sidonians call Hermon Siron, while the Amorites call it Senir.) ¹⁰ This included all of the cities of the plain and all of Gilead and all of Bashan, up to Salecah and Edrei, cities in the kingdom of Og of Bashan. ¹¹ (Og was the last of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron, and it was nine cubits long and four cubits wide. It is now in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)^[e]

¹² Distribution of Conquered Lands. From the land that we occupied at this time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the land beginning at Aroer on the Arnon River and half of the hill country of Gilead as well as its cities. ¹³ I gave the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (This was the whole region of Argob with all of Bashan, and it was known as the land of the Rephaim. ¹⁴ The clan of Jair, the son of Manasseh, took the entire region of Argob up to the borders with the Geshurites and the Maacathites. They named it after themselves, so that Bashan is known as Havvoth-jair until the present.) ^15 [f]I gave Gilead to Machir. ¹⁶ I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the land that stretched from Gilead up to the Arnon River (with the center of the valley being the boundary) and on to the Jabbok River, the border with the Ammonites. ¹⁷ Its border on the west was the Jordan in the Arabah, from the Kinnereth down to the Sea in the Arabah, the Salt Sea, at the foot of the slopes of the Pisgah.

¹⁸ At that time I commanded you, “The Lord, your God, has given you this land to possess. Have all of the armed men pass over in front of their brethren, the Israelites, armed for battle. ¹⁹ But your wives and your children and your cattle (for I know that you have many cattle) can remain in your cities that I have given you. ²⁰ It will be this way until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he already has to you, so that they also come to possess the land that the Lord, your God, has given them on the other side of the Jordan. Then, each of you can return to the property that I have given you.”

²¹ Then I commanded Joshua, “You have seen with your own eyes what the Lord, your God, has done to these two kings. This is what the Lord will do to any kingdom that you might encounter.^{[g] 22} Do not be afraid of them, for the Lord, your God, will fight for you.”

²³ Moses Forbidden to Enter Jordan. At that time I pleaded with the Lord, ²⁴ “O Lord God, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong arm. What God in heaven or on earth can do such deeds and mighty works as yours? ²⁵ Please let me cross over and see the bounteous land that is on the other side of the Jordan, the hill country and the Lebanon.”

²⁶ But the Lord was angry with me because of you^[h] and would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, “Enough! Do not speak to me about this anymore. ²⁷ Climb up to the top of Pisgah and look to the west, the north, the south, and the east and see it with your own eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. ²⁸ But give orders to Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he is to lead this people across and he will give them the land that you see as an inheritance.” ²⁹ So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.