Deuteronomy 2
New Catholic Bible
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.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 2:4 Esau (Edom) has allowed Israel to pass through and given it a welcome (v. 29; 23:8). A different version of the facts is given in Num 20:18.
- Deuteronomy 2:18 Ar: a Moabite city that gave its name to the entire land; perhaps to be identified with Khirbet-rabba.
- Deuteronomy 2:23 Gaza: a stronghold of the Philistines (see Am 9:7), who had entered Palestine in the thirteenth/twelfth century B.C.; Caphtor (Egyptian, Keftiu): Crete and the islands and coasts of the eastern Mediterranean.
- Deuteronomy 2:34 Destruction, or anathema, was a way of completely consecrating something to the divinity. Deuteronomy makes it a means of preserving the people. See Deut 7:2.
