1: Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan
this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities
great and fenced up to heaven,
2: A people great and tall, the
children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who
can stand before the children of Anak!
3: Understand therefore this
day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming
fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so
shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto
thee.
4: Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God
hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath
brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the
LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
5: Not for thy
righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess
their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive
them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware
unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6: Understand therefore,
that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy
righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.
7: Remember, and
forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness:
from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto
this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.
8: Also in
Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have
destroyed you.
9: When I was gone up into the mount to receive the
tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you,
then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread
nor drink water:
10: And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of
stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all
the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the
fire in the day of the assembly.
11: And it came to pass at the end
of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone,
even the tables of the covenant.
12: And the LORD said unto me,
Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought
forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out
of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.
13: Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this
people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
14: Let me alone,
that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will
make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.
15: So I turned
and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables
of the covenant were in my two hands.
16: And I looked, and, behold,
ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had
turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.
17: And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and
brake them before your eyes.
18: And I fell down before the LORD, as
at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink
water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight
of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
19: For I was afraid of the
anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy
you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also.
20: And the
LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron
also the same time.
21: And I took your sin, the calf which ye had
made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even
until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that
descended out of the mount.
22: And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at
Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath.
23: Likewise when
the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I
have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God,
and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.
24: Ye have been
rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
25: Thus I
fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the
first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
26: I prayed
therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine
inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast
brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
27: Remember thy
servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this
people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:
28: Lest the land
whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them
into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought
them out to slay them in the wilderness.
29: Yet they are thy people
and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy
stretched out arm.