Dual Panel1Hear, Israel; this day you will be crossing the Jordan to go in and occupy the territory of nations greater and more powerful than you, and great cities with fortifications towering to the sky.
2They are a great and tall people, the descendants of the Anakim, of whom you know, for you have heard it said, “Who can withstand the sons of Anak?”
3Know then this day that it is the LORD your God himself who crosses at your head as a devouring fire; it is he who will subdue them and destroy them as you advance; you will drive them out and soon overwhelm them, as he promised you.
4When the LORD your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourselves, “It is because of our merits that the LORD has brought us in to occupy this land.”
5It is not because of your merit or your integrity that you are entering their land to occupy it; it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you, and to fulfil the promise which the LORD made on oath to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6Know that it is not because of any merit of yours that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to occupy; indeed, you are a stubborn people.
7Remember, and never forget, how you angered the LORD your God in the wilderness: from the day you left Egypt until you came to this place you have defied the LORD.
8Even at Horeb you roused the LORD's anger, and the LORD in his wrath was ready to destroy you.
9When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights without food or drink.
10Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words the LORD had spoken to you from the heart of the fire, on the mountain during the day of the assembly.
11At the end of forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant,
12and said to me, “Go down from the mountain at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have committed a monstrous act: they have lost no time in turning from the way which I commanded them to follow, and have cast for themselves a metal image.”
13The LORD said to me, “I have observed this people and I find them a stubborn people.
14Let me be, and I shall destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I shall make you a nation more powerful and numerous than they.”
15I went back down the mountain; it was ablaze, and I had the two tablets of the covenant in my hands.
16When I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God and had made for yourselves a cast image of a bull-calf, losing no time in turning from the way the LORD had told you to follow,
17I flung down the two tablets which I held and shattered them in the sight of you all.
18Then, as before, I lay prostrate before the LORD, forty days and forty nights without food or drink, on account of all the sin that you had committed, and because, in doing what was wrong in the eyes of the LORD, you had provoked him to anger.
19I was in dread of the LORD's anger and the wrath with which he threatened to destroy you; but once again the LORD listened to me.
20The LORD was greatly incensed with Aaron also and would have killed him; so I interceded for him at that time.
21I took the calf, that sinful object you had made, and burnt it and pounded it, grinding it until it was as fine as dust; then I flung its dust into the torrent that flowed down from the mountain.
22At Taberah also you roused the LORD's anger, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.
23Again, when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea with orders to advance and occupy the land which he was giving you, you defied the LORD your God and did not trust him or obey him.
24You were defiant from the day that the LORD first knew you.
25Forty days and forty nights I lay prostrate before the LORD because he had threatened to destroy you;
26I prayed to the LORD and said, “LORD God, do not destroy your people, your own possession, whom you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt by your strong hand.
27Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, and their sin;
28otherwise the people in the land from which you led us will say, ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them and because he hated them, that he has led them out to let them die in the wilderness.’
29But they are your people, your own possession, whom you brought out by your great strength, by your outstretched arm.”