Chapter 9
1Hear O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.
2The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?”
3But understand today that AO your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly as AO has promised you.
4When AO your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness AO has brought me in to possess this land.” Rather, AO is driving out these nations before you because of their wickedness.
5It is not because of your righteousness or uprightness of heart that you are going in to possess their land, but [it is] because of their wickedness that AO your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that AO your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
7Remember this, and never forget how you provoked AO your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against AO.
8At Horeb, you provoked AO and He was angry enough to destroy you.
9When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that AO made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
10Then AO gave me the two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that AO spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11And at the end of forty days and forty nights, AO gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
12And AO said to me, “Get up and go down at once from here for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted [themselves]. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”
13AO also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.
14Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they [are].”
15So I went back down the mountain while it was blazing with fire with the two tablets of the covenant in my hands.
16And I saw how you had sinned against AO your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that AO had commanded you.
17So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, shattering them before your eyes.
18Then I fell down before AO for forty days and forty nights, as [I had done] the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of AO and provoking Him to anger.
19For I was afraid of the anger and wrath that AO had directed against you, enough to destroy you. But AO listened to me this time as well.
20AO was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron.
21And that sinful thing, the calf you had made, I took and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it [and] ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.
22You continued to provoke AO at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.
23And when AO sent you out from Kadesh-barnea He said, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of AO your God. You neither believed Him nor obeyed Him.
24You have been rebelling against AO since the day I came to know you.
25So I fell down before AO for forty days and forty nights, because AO had said He would destroy you.
26And I prayed to AO and said, “O Adonai AO do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
27Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people and the wickedness of their sin.
28Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because AO was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’
29But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.”