Deuteronomy
Chapter 1
1 These are the words Moses said to all Israel in the desert east of Jordan, near the Red Sea, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
2 It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadeshbarnea by the Mount Seir road.
3 In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses told the Israelites everything that God had commanded him to tell them.
4 After he killed Sihon, the king of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan who lived in Astaroth and Edrei:
5 Moses started to explain this law in the land of Moab, on this side of the Jordan River, saying,
6 God spoke to us at Horeb and said, “You have stayed on this mountain long enough.”
7 Turn around, start your trip, and head to the Amorite mountains and all the nearby areas, including the flat lands, the hills, the valleys, the south, and the coast, going to the land of the Canaanites, as far as Lebanon, up to the big river, the Euphrates.
8 Look, I have put the land in front of you: go and take the land that God promised to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and their children after them.
9 I told you then, “I can’t take care of you all by myself.”
10 God has made you very many, and today you are as countless as the stars in the sky.
11 May God, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as He promised.
12 How can I alone handle your troubles, your burdens, and your arguments?
13 Choose wise, understanding, and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them as your leaders.
14 You replied to me, saying, “What you have said is good for us to do.”
15 I chose the best leaders from your groups, wise and respected men, and appointed them as leaders over you: leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and other officials for your groups.
16 At that time, I told your judges: Listen to the disputes among your people and make fair decisions between one person and another, and between your people and the foreigners living among you.
17 Do not treat people unfairly when you judge; listen to the unimportant and the important alike; do not fear anyone, because the decision is God’s. If a case is too difficult for you, bring it to me, and I will listen to it.
18 I told you then all the things you should do.
19 When we left Horeb, we traveled through the vast and frightening desert that you saw on the way to the Amorites’ mountain, just as God told us; and we arrived at Kadeshbarnea.
20 I told you, you have reached the mountain of the Amorites, which God is giving to us.
21 Look, God has put the land in front of you: go up and take it, just as the God of your ancestors told you; do not be afraid or lose heart.
22 You all came to me and said, “We will send men ahead to explore the land and tell us the best way to go and which towns to enter.”
23 I liked the idea, so I chose twelve men from among you, one from each tribe.
24 They turned, went up the mountain, reached the Eshcol Valley, and explored it.
25 They carried some of the land’s fruit with them, showed it to us, and told us, “The land God is giving us is good.”
26 Despite this, you did not go up and instead went against God’s command.
27 You complained in your tents and said, “Because God hated us, he brought us out of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites and destroy us.”
28 Where should we go? Our own people have scared us, saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we are; the cities are huge with walls reaching the sky; and we even saw the Anakim’s descendants there.”
29 I told you, don’t be scared or afraid of them.
30 God, who leads you, will fight for you, just as he did in Egypt right before you.
31 In the desert, you saw how God carried you, like a father carries his son, all along the journey until you arrived here.
32 In this matter, you did not trust God.
33 Someone went ahead of you to find a place for you to set up your tents. They guided you at night with fire to show you the way, and by day with a cloud.
34 God heard what you said and became angry, swearing, “
35 None of these evil people will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors.
36 Except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh; he will see the land, and I will give him and his children the land he walked on, because he completely followed God.
37 God was also angry with me because of you, saying, You will not go in there either.
38 Joshua, son of Nun, who is with you, will go there; support him because he will lead Israel to take over the land.
39 Also, the young children you thought would be taken, and your kids who don’t yet know right from wrong, they will go there, I will give it to them, and they will own it.
40 But as for you, go back and travel through the desert towards the Red Sea.
41 Then you replied to me, “We have sinned against God, we will go and fight, just as God our God told us.” And when each man had put on his weapons of war, you were prepared to march up the hill.
42 God told me to tell you, “Do not go up or fight, for I am not with you; otherwise, you will be defeated by your enemies.”
43 I spoke to you, but you did not listen and disobeyed God’s command, boldly going up the hill.
44 The Amorites, who lived in that mountain, came out against you and chased you like bees and defeated you in Seir, all the way to Hormah.
45 You came back and cried before God, but God did not listen to you or pay attention to you.
46 You stayed in Kadesh for a long time, as long as you were there.