 1 Hear, O Israel. You are to pass over Jordan today, to go in to expel nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fenced up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom you know and have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak. 3 Therefore, understand today that the Lord your God is the one who goes over before you. Like a consuming fire, He will destroy them and bring them down before your face. So you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. 4 Do not speak in your heart after the Lord your God has cast them out from before you, saying: For my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land. But for the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. 5 Not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart do you go to possess their land. But for the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God drives them out from before you so that He may perform the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God does not give you this good land to possess it for your righteousness. For you are a stiff necked people. 7 Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you departed out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath so that the Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you. 9 When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, then I stayed in the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 The Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them according to all the words that the Lord spoke with you in the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 At the end of 40 days and 40 nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 The Lord said to me, Arise. Get down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted. They have quickly turned aside out of the way that I commanded them. They have made them a molten image. 13 The Lord spoke to me saying: I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff necked people. 14 Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they. 15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire. And the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 I looked, and behold. You had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made you a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly out of the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, 40 days and 40 nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sins that you sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and fury that the Lord was angry against you to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. 20 The Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 I took your sin, the calf that you had made, and burned it with fire and stamped it, grinding it very small until it was as small as dust. I threw the dust of it into the river that descended out of the mountain. 22 At Taberah, and at Massah, and at the Graves of Lust, you provoked the Lord to anger. 23 When the Lord sent you from Kadeshbarnea, saying: Go up and possess the land that I have given you, then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him, nor listened to His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. 25 I fell down before the Lord 40 days and 40 nights, that I had thrown myself down, for the Lord had said to destroy you. 26 I prayed therefore to the Lord and said, O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your inheritance that you have redeemed through your greatness that you have brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin, 28 lest the land from where you bring us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness. 29 Yet they are your people and your inheritance that you brought out by your mighty power and by your stretched out arm.
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