Deuteronomy 9

Hear, Israel! You are crossing the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, {with} cities great and fortified to the heavens,

a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakites, whom you, you know, and you, you have heard, ‘Who can stand to the faces of the sons of Anak?’ \*

And you shall know today that God your God, he is the one who goes over to your face, a devouring fire; he, he will destroy them, and he, he will subdue them to your face. And you will drive them out and exterminate them quickly, as God has spoken to you. \*

You shall not say in your heart, when God your God has thrust them out from to your face, saying, ‘In my righteousness God has brought me in to possess this land,’ but in the wickedness of these nations, God is driving them out from your face. \*

Not in your righteousness or in the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but in the wickedness of these nations, God your God is driving them out from your face, and so that God may establish the word that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. \*

And you shall know that not in your righteousness is God your God giving to you this good land to possess, for you {are} a people stiff of neck. \*

Remember, you shall not forget how you provoked God your God to anger in the wilderness; from the day that you went out from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against God.

And at Horeb you provoked God to anger, and God was angry with you to destroy you. \*

When I went up to the mountain to take the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that God cut with you, and I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights, bread I did not eat and water I did not drink.

And God gave to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God. And on them {was} according to all the words that God spoke with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. \*

And it happened, at the end of 40 days and 40 nights, God gave to me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

And God said to me, ‘Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people, whom you brought out from Egypt, have become corrupted. They have quickly turned aside from the path that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast figure.’ \*

And God said to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it {is} a people stiff of neck.

Release from me, and I will destroy them and wipe out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ \*

And I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with the fire. And the two tablets of the covenant {were} in my two hands.

And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against God your God. You had made for yourselves a cast-image calf. You had quickly turned aside from the path that God had commanded you. \*

And I seized the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands. And I broke them before your eyes. \*

And I prostrated myself to the face of God as before, 40 days and 40 nights. Bread I did not eat and water I did not drink, because of all your sin that you had committed, in doing evil in the eyes of God, to provoke him to anger. \*

For I was afraid from the face of the nose and the heat with which God was angry against you to destroy you. And God listened to me also that time.

And God was very angry against Aaron, to destroy him. And I interceded also for the sake of Aaron at that time. \*

And I took your sin, the calf that you had made, and burned it in the fire and crushed it and ground well, until crushed to dust. And I threw its dust into the stream coming down from the mountain. \*

And at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you were provoking God to anger,

and when God sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given to you,’ and you rebelled against the mouth of God your God, and you did not believe him, and you did not listen to his voice. \*

You have been rebellious against God from {the} day I knew you. \*

And I prostrated myself to the face of God 40 days and 40 nights, and I prostrated myself because God had said to destroy you.

And I prayed to God and said, ‘My Lord God, do not destroy your people and your inheritance whom you have redeemed through your greatness, which you have brought out from Egypt with a mighty hand. \*

Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not turn to the stiffness of this people and to their wickedness and to their sin,

lest the land where you brought us out from should say, “From God not being able to bring them into the land that he spoke to them, or from his hatred of them he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.”

And they {are} your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’ \*