Israel Wanders in the Desert

2 Then we turned ·around [^Lface], and we traveled on the ·desert [wilderness] road toward the ·Red [or Reed] Sea [Ex. 10:19], as the Lord had told me to do. We traveled through the mountains of ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] for many days.

² Then the Lord said to me, ³ “You have traveled through these mountains long enough. Turn north ⁴ and give the people this command: ‘You will soon go through the land that belongs to your ·relatives [brothers], the ·descendants [sons] of Esau who live in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44]. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. ⁵ Do not go to war against them. I will not give you any of their land—not even a foot of it, because I have given the mountains of ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] to Esau as his own. ⁶ You must pay them in silver for any food you eat or water you drink.’”

⁷ The Lord your God has blessed everything you have done; he has protected you while you traveled through this ·great desert [vast wilderness]. The Lord your God has been with you for the past forty years, and you have had everything you needed.

⁸ So we passed by our ·relatives [brothers], the ·descendants [sons] of Esau who lived in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44]. We turned off the ·Jordan Valley [^LArabah] road that comes from the towns of Elath and Ezion Geber and traveled along the ·desert [wilderness] road to Moab [Num. 20:14–21].

The Land of Ar

⁹ Then the Lord said to me, “Don’t ·bother [harrass] the people of Moab. Don’t go to war against them, because I will not give you any of their land as your own; I have given Ar to the ·descendants [^Lsons] of Lot as their own.” ¹⁰ (The Emites, who lived in ·Ar [^Lit] before, were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakites. ¹¹ The Emites were thought to be ·Rephaites [or Rephaim; 3:11, 13; Gen. 14:5], like the Anakites, but the Moabite people called them Emites. ¹² The Horites also lived in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] before, but the ·descendants [^Lsons] of Esau forced them out and destroyed them, taking their place as Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their own.)

¹³ And the Lord said to me, “Now get up and cross the Zered ·Valley [Wadi].” So we crossed the ·valley [wadi]. ¹⁴ It had been thirty-eight years from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered ·Valley [Wadi]. By then, all the fighting men ·from that time [^Lof that generation] had died, as the Lord had ·promised [sworn] would happen [Num. 14:20–23]. ¹⁵ The [^Lhand of the] Lord ·continued to work [^Lwas] against them to remove them from the camp until they were all dead.

¹⁶ When the last of those fighting men had died, ¹⁷ the Lord said to me, ¹⁸ “Today you will pass by Ar, on the border of Moab. ¹⁹ When you come near the ·people [^Lsons; descendants] of Ammon, don’t ·bother [harrass] them or go to war against them, because I will not give you any of their land as your own. I have given it to the ·descendants [sons] of Lot for their own.”

²⁰ (That land was also thought to be a land of the ·Rephaites [or Rephaim; 2:11], because those people used to live there, but the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹ They were strong people, and there were many of them; they were very tall, like the Anakites. The Lord destroyed the Zamzummites, and the Ammonites forced them out of the land and took their place. ²² The Lord did the same thing for the ·descendants [sons] of Esau, who lived in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44], when he destroyed the Horites. ·The Edomites [^LThey] forced them out of the land and took their place, and they live there to this day. ²³ The ·Cretan people [^LCaphtorim; ^Cbetter known as Philistines] came from ·Crete [^LCaphtor] and destroyed the Avvites, who lived in towns all the way to Gaza; the ·Cretans [^LCaphtorim] destroyed them and took their place.)

Fighting the Amorites

²⁴ The Lord said, “Get up and cross the Arnon ·Ravine [Wadi]. See, I am ·giving you the power to defeat [^Lputting in your hand] Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and I am giving you his land [Num. 21:21–32]. So fight against him and begin taking his land. ²⁵ Today I will begin to make all the people ·in the world [^Lunder heaven] afraid of you. When they hear reports about you, they will shake with fear, and they will be terrified of you.”

²⁶ I sent messengers from the ·desert [wilderness] of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon. ·They offered him [^L…with words/messages of] peace, saying, ²⁷ “If you let us pass through your country, · we will stay on the road and [^LI will] not turn right or left. ²⁸ We will pay you in silver for any food we eat or water we drink. We only want to walk through your country. ²⁹ The ·descendants [sons] of Esau in ·Edom [^LSeir; 1:44] let us go through their land, and so did the Moabites in Ar. We want to cross the Jordan River into the land the Lord our God has given us.” ³⁰ But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass, because the Lord your God had ·made him stubborn [^Lhardened his spirit and made his heart defiant]. The Lord wanted ·you to defeat Sihon, and now this has happened [^Lto give him into your hand as it is on this day].

³¹ The Lord said to me, “See, I have begun to give Sihon and his country to you. Begin taking the land as your own.”

³² Then Sihon and all his army came out and fought us at Jahaz, ³³ but the Lord our God gave Sihon to us. We ·defeated [^Lstruck] him, his sons, and all his army. ³⁴ We captured all his cities at that time and ·completely destroyed them [devoted them to the Lord; 20:15–20; Josh. 6:17], as well as the men, women, and children. We left no one alive. ³⁵ But we kept the cattle and ·valuable things [^Lplunder] from the cities for ourselves. ³⁶ We defeated Aroer on the edge of the Arnon ·Ravine [Wadi], and we defeated the town in the ·ravine [wadi], and even as far as Gilead. No ·town was too strong [or citadel was too high] for us; the Lord our God gave us all of them. ³⁷ But you did not go near the land of the ·Ammonites [^Lsons/descendants of Ammon], on the shores of the Jabbok ·River [Wadi], or the towns in the mountains, as the Lord our God had commanded.

The Battle at Bashan

3 When we turned and went up the road toward Bashan, Og king of Bashan and all his army came out to fight us at Edrei. ² The Lord said to me, “Don’t be afraid of Og, because I will hand him, his whole army, and his land over to you. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon [Num. 21:33–35].”

³ So the Lord our God gave ·us [^Linto our hands] Og king of Bashan and all his army; we ·defeated [^Lstruck] them and ·left no one alive [there were no survivors]. ⁴ Then we captured all of Og’s cities, all sixty of them, and took the whole area of Argob, Og’s kingdom in Bashan. ⁵ All these were ·strong [fortified] cities, with high walls and ·gates [double doors] with bars. And there were also many small towns with no walls. ⁶ We ·completely destroyed them [devoted them to the Lord; 20:15–18; Josh. 6:17], just like the cities of Sihon king of Heshbon. We killed all the men, women, and children, ⁷ but we kept all the cattle and ·valuable things [plunder] from the cities for ourselves.

⁸ So at that time we took the land ·east of [^Lbeyond] the Jordan River, from the Arnon ·Ravine [Wadi] to Mount Hermon, from these two Amorite kings. ⁹ (Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonian people, but the Amorites call it Senir.) ¹⁰ We captured all the cities on the high plain and all of Gilead, and we took all of Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns in Og’s kingdom of Bashan. ¹¹ (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the few ·Rephaites [or Rephaim; Gen. 14:5]. His bed was made of iron, and it was more than ·thirteen feet [^Lnine cubits] long and ·six feet [^Lfour cubits] wide! It is still in the ·Ammonite city [^Lcity of the sons/descendants of Ammon] of Rabbah.)

The Land Is Divided

¹² At that time we took this land to be our own. I gave the people of Reuben and Gad the land from Aroer by the Arnon Ravine, as well as half of the mountain country of Gilead and the cities in it [Num. 32:1–42]. ¹³ To the people of ·East [^Lthe half-tribe of] Manasseh I gave the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og. (The area of Argob in Bashan was called the land of the ·Rephaites [or Rephaim; Gen. 14:5]. ¹⁴ Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole area of Argob, all the way to the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites. So that land was named for Jair, and even today Bashan is called the Towns of Jair.) ¹⁵ I gave Gilead to Makir. ¹⁶ I gave the ·Reubenites [^Lsons of Reuben] and the ·Gadites [^Lsons of Gad] the land that begins at Gilead and goes from the Arnon ·Ravine [Wadi] (the middle of the Arnon is the border) to the Jabbok ·River [Wadi], which is the ·Ammonite border [^Lborder of the sons of Ammon]. ¹⁷ The border on the west was the Jordan River in the ·Jordan Valley [^LArabah], and it goes from ·Lake [or the Sea of] ·Galilee [^Lof the Arabah] to the ·Dead [^LSalt] Sea west of Mount Pisgah.

¹⁸ At that time I gave you this command: “The Lord your God has given you this land ·as your own [to possess it]. Now your fighting men must take their weapons, and you must lead ·the other Israelites [^Lyour brothers, the sons/^Tchildren of Israel] across the river. ¹⁹ Your wives, your young children, and your cattle may stay here. I know you have many cattle, and they may stay here in the cities I have given you, ²⁰ until the Lord also gives your ·Israelite relatives [^Lbrothers] a place to rest. They will receive the land the Lord your God has given them on the other side of the Jordan River. After that, you may each return to ·the land I have given you [your possession].”

²¹ Then I gave this command to Joshua at that time: “·You [^LYour eyes] have seen for yourself all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. The Lord will do the same thing to all the kingdoms where you are ·going [crossing over]. ²² Don’t be afraid of them, because the Lord your God will fight for you.”

Moses Cannot Enter the Land

²³ Then I ·begged [pleaded with] the Lord at that time: ²⁴ “Lord God, you have begun to show me, your servant, ·how great you are [^Lyour greatness and your strong hand]. ·You have great strength, and no [^LWhat…?] other god in heaven or on earth can do the powerful things you do. There is no other god like you. ²⁵ Please let me cross ·the [^Lbeyond the] Jordan River so that I may see the good land by the Jordan. I want to see the beautiful mountains and Lebanon.”

²⁶ But the Lord was angry with me because of you [Num. 20:1–21], and he would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, “That’s enough from you. Don’t talk to me anymore about it. ²⁷ Climb to the top of Mount Pisgah and ·look [^Llift your eyes to the] west, north, south, and east. You can look ·at the land [^Lwith your eyes], but you will not cross the Jordan River [34:1–8]. ²⁸ ·Appoint [Charge; Commission] Joshua and help him be brave and strong. He will lead the people across the river and give them the land that they are to inherit, but you can only look at it.” ²⁹ So we stayed in the ·valley [or glen] opposite Beth Peor.