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Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.
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The class="small-caps" >Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes,
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and in the wilderness. There you saw how the class="small-caps" >Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”
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who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.
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“No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors,
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except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the class="small-caps" >Lord wholeheartedly.”
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Because of you the class="small-caps" >Lord became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.
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But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.
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And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.
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But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.”
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Then you replied, “We have sinned against the class="small-caps" >Lord. We will go up and fight, as the class="small-caps" >Lord our God commanded us.” So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.
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But the class="small-caps" >Lord said to me, “Tell them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.’”
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So I told you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the class="small-caps" >Lord’s command and in your arrogance you marched up into the hill country.
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The Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you; they chased you like a swarm of bees and beat you down from Seir all the way to Hormah.
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You came back and wept before the class="small-caps" >Lord, but he paid no attention to your weeping and turned a deaf ear to you.
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Wanderings in the Wilderness
Then we turned back and set out toward the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea, as the class="small-caps" >Lord had directed me. For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir.
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“You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north.
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Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your relatives the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful.
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Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own.
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You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’”
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The class="small-caps" >Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. These forty years the class="small-caps" >Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.
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So we went on past our relatives the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab.
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(The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites.
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Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites.
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Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the class="small-caps" >Lord gave them as their possession.)
