“And the Lord was even angry with me because of them and said to me, ‘You shall not enter the Promised Land!

Instead, your assistant, Joshua (the son of Nun), shall lead the people. Encourage him as he prepares to take over the leadership.

I will give the land to the children they said would die in the wilderness.

But as for you of the older generation, turn around now and go on back across the desert toward the Red Sea.’

“Then they confessed, ‘We have sinned! We will go into the land and fight for it as the Lord our God has told us to.’ So they strapped on their weapons and thought it would be easy to conquer the whole area.

“But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them not to do it, for I will not go with them; they will be struck down before their enemies.’

“I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they rebelled again against the Lord’s commandment and went on up into the hill country to fight.

But the Amorites who lived there came out against them and chased them like bees and killed them from Seir to Hormah.

Then they returned and wept before the Lord, but he wouldn’t listen.

“Then we turned back across the wilderness toward the Red Sea, for so the Lord had instructed me. For many years we wandered around in the area of Mount Seir.

‘You have stayed here long enough. Turn northward.

Inform the people that they will be passing through the country belonging to their brothers the Edomites, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir; the Edomites will be nervous, so be careful.

Don’t start a fight! For I have given them all the Mount Seir hill country as their permanent possession, and I will not give you even a tiny piece of their land.

The Lord your God has watched over you and blessed you every step of the way for all these forty years as you have wandered around in this great wilderness; and you have lacked nothing in all that time.’

“So we passed through Edom where our brothers lived, crossing the Arabah Road that goes south to Elath and Ezion-geber, and traveling northward toward the wilderness of Moab.

“Then the Lord warned us, ‘Don’t attack the Moabites either, for I will not give you any of their land; I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’

“(The Emim used to live in that area, a very large tribe, tall as the giants of Anakim;

both the Emim and the Anakim are often referred to as the Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.

In earlier days the Horites lived in Seir, but they were driven out and displaced by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, just as Israel would displace the peoples of Canaan, whose land had been assigned to Israel by the Lord.)

“‘Now cross Zered Brook,’ the Lord said; and we did.

“So it took us thirty-eight years to finally get across Zered Brook from Kadesh! For the Lord had decreed that this could not happen until all the men, who thirty-eight years earlier were old enough to bear arms, had died. Yes, the hand of the Lord was against them until finally all were dead.

“Then at last the Lord said to me,

‘Today Israel shall cross the borders of Moab at Ar,

into the land of the Ammonites. But do not attack them, for I will not give you any of their land. I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’

“(That area, too, used to be inhabited by the Rephaim, called ‘Zamzummim’ by the Ammonites.