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DEUTERONOMY: CHAPTER
3-4
DEUTERONOMY: CHAPTER
3
Conquests
Recounted
1 "Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan,
and Og, king of Bashan, with all his people came out to meet us in battle
at Edrei.
2 "But the LORD said to
me, 'Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and
his land into your hand; and you shall do to him just as you did to
Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.'
3 "So the LORD our God
delivered Og also, king of Bashan, with all his people into our hand,
and we smote them until no survivor was left.
4 "We captured all his cities at that time; there
was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the
region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
5 "All these were cities fortified with high
walls, gates and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns.
6 "We utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon
king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women and children of every
city.
7 "But all the animals and the spoil of the cities
we took as our booty.
8 "Thus we took the land at that time
from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan,
from the valley of Arnon to Mount Hermon
9 (Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, and the Amorites
call it Senir):
10 all the cities of the plateau and all Gilead
and all Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of
Og in Bashan.
11 (For only Og king of Bashan was left of the
remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead; it
is in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon. Its length was nine cubits and its
width four cubits by ordinary cubit.)
12 "So we took possession of this land
at that time. From Aroer, which is by the valley of Arnon, and half
the hill country of Gilead and its cities I gave to the Reubenites and
to the Gadites.
13 "The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom
of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the region of Argob
(concerning all Bashan, it is called the land of Rephaim.
14 Jair the son of Manasseh took all the region
of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites,
and called it, that is, Bashan, after his own name, Havvoth-jair,
as it is to this day.)
15 "To Machir I gave Gilead.
16 "To the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave
from Gilead even as far as the valley of Arnon, the middle of the valley
as a border and as far as the river Jabbok, the border of the sons of
Ammon;
17 the Arabah also, with the Jordan as a
border, from Chinnereth even as far as the sea of the Arabah, the Salt
Sea, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah on the east.
18 "Then I commanded you at that time,
saying, 'The LORD your God has given you this
land to possess it; all you valiant men shall cross over armed before
your brothers, the sons of Israel.
19 'But your wives and your little ones and your
livestock (I know that you have much livestock) shall remain in your
cities which I have given you,
20 until the LORD gives
rest to your fellow countrymen as to you, and they also possess the
land which the LORD your God will give them beyond
the Jordan. Then you may return every man to his possession which I
have given you.'
21 "I commanded Joshua at that time, saying,
'Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God
has done to these two kings; so the LORD shall
do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross.
22 'Do not fear them, for the LORD
your God is the one fighting for you.'
23 "I also pleaded with the LORD
at that time, saying,
24 'O Lord GOD, You have
begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your strong hand; for
what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty
acts as Yours?
25 'Let me, I pray, cross over and see the fair
land that is beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.'
26 "But the LORD was angry
with me on your account, and would not listen to me; and the LORD
said to me, 'Enough! Speak to Me no more of this matter.
27 'Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your
eyes to the west and north and south and east, and see it with
your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan.
28 'But charge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen
him, for he shall go across at the head of this people, and he will
give them as an inheritance the land which you will see.'
29 "So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.
DEUTERONOMY: CHAPTER
4
Israel Urged
to Obey God's Law
1 "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and
the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you may live
and go in and take possession of the land which the LORD,
the God of your fathers, is giving you.
2 "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding
you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the
LORD your God which I command you.
3 "Your eyes have seen what the LORD
has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who followed Baal-peor,
the LORD your God has destroyed them from among
you.
4 "But you who held fast to the LORD
your God are alive today, every one of you.
5 "See, I have taught you statutes and
judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me,
that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess
it.
6 "So keep and do them, for that is your
wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear
all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and
understanding people.'
7 "For what great nation is there that has a
god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever
we call on Him?
8 "Or what great nation is there that has statutes
and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before
you today?
9 "Only give heed to yourself and keep
your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your
eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of
your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons.
10 "Remember the day you stood before
the LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD
said to me, 'Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My
words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth,
and that they may teach their children.'
11 "You came near and stood at the foot of the
mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart
of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom.
12 "Then the LORD spoke
to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but
you saw no form—only a voice.
13 "So He declared to you His covenant which
He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and
He wrote them on two tablets of stone.
14 "The LORD commanded
me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might
perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it.
15 "So watch yourselves carefully, since
you did not see any form on the day the LORD
spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,
16 so that you do not act corruptly and make
a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness
of male or female,
17 the likeness of any animal that is on the
earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the
ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth.
19 "And beware not to lift up your eyes
to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of
heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which
the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples
under the whole heaven.
20 "But the LORD has taken
you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people
for His own possession, as today.
21 "Now the LORD
was angry with me on your account, and swore that I would not cross
the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the LORD
your God is giving you as an inheritance.
22 "For I will die in this land, I shall not
cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this good
land.
23 "So watch yourselves, that you do not forget
the covenant of the LORD your God which He made
with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything
against which the LORD your God has commanded
you.
24 "For the LORD your
God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25 "When you become the father of children
and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act
corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which
is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so
as to provoke Him to anger,
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against
you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you
are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on
it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27 "The LORD will scatter
you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the
nations where the LORD drives you.
28 "There you will serve gods, the work of man's
hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.
29 "But from there you will seek the LORD
your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all
your heart and all your soul.
30 "When you are in distress and all these things
have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD
your God and listen to His voice.
31 "For the LORD your
God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor
forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.
32 "Indeed, ask now concerning the former
days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the
earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other.
Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything
been heard like it?
33 "Has any people heard the voice of
God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it,
and survived?
34 "Or has a god tried to go to take for himself
a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders
and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great
terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in
Egypt before your eyes?
35 "To you it was shown that you might know that
the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides
Him.
36 "Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice
to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you
heard His words from the midst of the fire.
37 "Because He loved your fathers, therefore
He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you
from Egypt by His great power,
38 driving out from before you nations greater
and mightier than you, to bring you in and to give you their
land for an inheritance, as it is today.
39 "Know therefore today, and take it to your
heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above
and on the earth below; there is no other.
40 "So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments
which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your
children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the
LORD your God is giving you for all time."
41 Then Moses set apart three cities across
the Jordan to the east,
42 that a manslayer might flee there, who unintentionally
slew his neighbor without having enmity toward him in time past; and
by fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
43 Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for
the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan
for the Manassites.
44 Now this is the law which Moses set
before the sons of Israel;
45 these are the testimonies and the statutes
and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, when they
came out from Egypt,
46 across the Jordan, in the valley opposite
Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon,
whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out from Egypt.
47 They took possession of his land and the land
of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were
across the Jordan to the east,
48 from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley
of Arnon, even as far as Mount Sion (that is, Hermon),
49 with all the Arabah across the Jordan to the
east, even as far as the sea of the Arabah, at the foot of the slopes
of Pisgah. |
