Deuteronomy 2

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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Passing by Edom, Moab and Ammon

¹So we turned back and headed into the wilderness by the Red Sea road, as the LORD had told me, and we spent a long time going around the hill country of Seir.

²Then the LORD said to me, ³‘Your circling of this hill country has gone on long enough. Turn north now. ⁴And tell the people: “You are going to cross the land of your relatives, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will fear you, and you must take great care. ⁵Do not start a fight with them, because I will not give you any of their land, not even room enough to set your foot on. I have given the hill country of Seir to Esau as his possession. ⁶You are to buy food from them with money so that you can eat, and you are to pay them money for water to drink as well. ⁷The LORD your God has blessed all that your hands have done. He has cared for you as you made your way through this great wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you for these forty years, and you have never gone without anything.”’ ⁸So we moved on past our relatives, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir, leaving the road through the Arabah that comes up from Elath and Ezion-geber. Then we turned and went along the road through the wilderness of Moab. ⁹Then the LORD said to me, ‘Do not treat Moab as an enemy or start a war with them. I will not give you any of their land to possess, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their own.’ ¹⁰(In earlier times the Emim lived there, a great people, numerous and as tall as the Anakim. ¹¹They were reckoned as Rephaim, as the Anakim were, though the Moabites’ name for them is Emim. ¹²Seir, too, was once the home of the Horites. The descendants of Esau took it from them, wiping them out as they advanced and settling in their place, just as Israel did in the land that the LORD gave it to possess.) ¹³‘Rise now and cross over the Zered Valley.’ So we crossed over the Zered Valley. ¹⁴The time from when we left Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley was thirty-eight years. That was how long it took for the whole generation of fighting men to die out from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them. ¹⁵Indeed, the hand of the LORD was against them, sweeping them out of the camp until none of them were left. ¹⁶When every one of the fighting men had died and was gone from among the people,

¹⁷the LORD said to me, ¹⁸‘Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar. ¹⁹When you come close to the Ammonites, do not treat them as enemies or start a fight with them, for I will not give you any of the Ammonites’ land to possess. I have given it to the descendants of Lot as their own.’ ²⁰(That land too was counted as a land of the Rephaim. The Rephaim used to live there, though the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, ²¹a great people, numerous and as tall as the Anakim. The LORD wiped them out to make way for the Ammonites, who took over their land and settled there in their place, ²²just as he had done for the descendants of Esau who live in Seir, when he wiped out the Horites before them, so that they took over the Horites’ land and live there still, to this day. ²³The Avvites, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, were wiped out by the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor and settled where the Avvites had been.) ²⁴‘Get up, set out, and cross the Arnon Valley. Look, I have handed Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, over to you, and his land with him. Start taking his land, and make war on him. ²⁵Starting today I will make the peoples everywhere under heaven dread you and fear you. When they hear reports about you, they will tremble and shake with terror because of you.’ ²⁶Then I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with an offer of peace: ²⁷‘Let me pass through your land. I will keep strictly to the road and will not turn off to the right or the left. ²⁸Sell me food for money so that I can eat, and give me water for money so that I can drink. Just let me pass through on foot, ²⁹as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD our God is giving us.’ ³⁰But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through his land, because the LORD your God had hardened his spirit and made his heart stubborn, so that he could hand him over to you, as you see today.

The defeat of Sihon king of Heshbon

³¹Then the LORD said to me, ‘Look, I have begun to hand Sihon and his land over to you. Start now to take possession, so that his land will be yours.’ ³²Sihon came out with his whole army to fight us at Jahaz. ³³The LORD our God handed him over to us, and we defeated him, his sons and all his army. ³⁴At that time we captured all his towns and devoted every one of them to destruction, with their men, women and children. We did not leave a single survivor. ³⁵We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, along with the spoil from the towns we had captured. ³⁶From Aroer, which stands at the edge of the Arnon Valley, and the town that lies in the valley, as far as Gilead, not a single town stood too high for us to take. The LORD our God gave every one of them over to us. ³⁷But you did not go near the land of the Ammonites, the whole region along the Jabbok River and the towns in the hill country, just as the LORD our God had commanded.