Deuteronomy 9

¹Hear, O Israel: you are crossing over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to the heavens,

²a people great and tall, sons of the Anakites, whom you yourself have known, and of whom you have heard said: 'Who can stand before the sons of Anak?'

³And you shall know today that the Lord your God is he who crosses over before you as a consuming fire; he will destroy them and subdue them before you, so that you shall dispossess them and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you.

⁴Do not say in your heart, when the LORD your God drives them out from before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,' whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them from before you.

⁵Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out before you, and in order to confirm the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶Know then that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

⁷Remember; do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until the coming of you all to this place, you have been rebelling against the Lord.

⁸And at Horeb you all provoked the LORD to anger, and the LORD was angry with you all enough to destroy you all.

⁹When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and I drank no water.

¹⁰And the Lord gave to me the two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord spoke with you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly.

¹¹And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

¹²And the LORD said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out from Egypt have acted corruptly; they have turned aside quickly from the way that I commanded them; they have made for themselves a cast image.'

¹³And the LORD said to me, saying: 'I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.'

¹⁴Let me alone, that I may destroy them and wipe out their name from under the heavens; and I will make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than it.

¹⁵So I turned and came down from the mountain, while the mountain was burning with fire, with the two tablets of the covenant upon my two hands.

¹⁶And I saw, and behold, you all had sinned against the LORD the God of you all; you all had made for yourselves a cast calf; you all had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you all.

¹⁷And I seized the two tablets and threw them from upon my two hands and shattered them before your eyes.

¹⁸And I fell prostrate before the Lord as at the first time, forty days and forty nights; I did not eat bread and I did not drink water, on account of all the sins of you all that you all had committed in doing what was bad in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

¹⁹For I dreaded the anger and the wrath with which the LORD was angry against you all enough to destroy you all; but the LORD listened to me also at that time.

²⁰And against Aaron the Lord was exceedingly angry, to the point of destroying him; so I also prayed on behalf of Aaron at that time.

²¹And the sin of you all that you all had made, the calf, I took and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the wadi that flows down from the mountain.

²²And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you were provoking the LORD to anger.

²³And when the Lord sent you all from Kadesh Barnea, saying, 'Go up and take possession of the land that I have given to you all,' you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not trust him, and you did not listen to his voice.

²⁴You all have been rebelling against the LORD from the day I have known you all.

²⁵And I prostrated myself before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.

²⁶And I prayed to the Lord and said, 'O Lord GOD, do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.

²⁷Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look to the stubbornness of this people, or to their wickedness, or to their sin.

²⁸lest the people of the land from which you brought us out say, 'Because the Lord was unable to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because of his hatred of them, he brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.'

²⁹For they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.