BDJ
Español
English
Deuteronomy 2
Israel’s relations with Edom and Moab
1 ‘We turned round, therefore, and made for the wilderness, in the direction of the Sea of Suph, as Yahweh had ordered me. For many days we wandered about the highlands of Seir.
2 Yahweh then said to me,
3 “You have wandered long enough in these highlands. Go north.
4 And give the people this order: You are about to pass through the territory of your kinsmen, the sons of Esau who live in Seir. They are frightened of you; but take care
5 not to provoke them. For I will give you none of their land, no, not so much as a foot’s length of it. I have given the highlands of Seir to Esau as his domain.
6 Pay them in money for what food you eat; and pay them in money for all the water you drink.
7 Yahweh your God has blessed you in all you do; he has watched over your journeying through this vast wilderness. Yahweh your God has been with you these forty years and you have never been in want.”
8 ‘So we passed beyond those kinsmen of ours, the sons of Esau who live in Seir, by the Arabah and Elath and Ezion-geber road; then, changing direction, we took the road towards the wilderness of Moab.
9 And Yahweh said to me, “Make no attack on Moab and do not provoke him to fight, for I will give you
none of his land. I have given Ar into the possession of the sons of Lot.’
10 (At one time the Emim lived there, a great and numerous people, tall as the Anakim;[*a]
11 and, like the Anakim, they were accounted Rephaim, though the Moabites call them Emim.
12 The Horites,[*b] too, lived in Seir at one time; these, however, were dispossessed and exterminated by the sons of Esau who settled there in place of them, just as Israel did in their own land, the heritage they received from Yahweh.)
13 ‘Forward, then! Cross the wadi Zered!”
‘And so we crossed the wadi Zered.
14 Now from Kadesh-barnea to the wadi Zered our wanderings had taken thirty-eight years, so that the whole generation of men fit for war was lost to the camp, as Yahweh had sworn to them.
15 The hand of Yahweh fell upon them in the camp until they had perished entirely.
16 When all the men fit for war had been carried off by death from among the people, down to the last man,
17 Yahweh said this to me,
18 “You are now about to cross Ar, the land of Moab,
19 and to approach the frontier of the sons of Ammon. Make no attack on them and do not provoke them, for I will give you none of the land belonging to the sons of Ammon. I have given it to the sons of Lot as their domain.’
20 (This also was accounted a land of Rephaim; at one time the Rephaim lived there, though the Ammonites call them Zamzummim,
21 a great and numerous people, tall as the Anakim. Yahweh exterminated them before the advancing Ammonites who dispossessed them and settled there in place of them,
22 just as he had exterminated the Horites in front of the sons of Esau who live in Seir, so that they dispossessed them and settled there in place of them and are still there now.
23 It was the same with the Avvites who had their encampments as far as Gaza: the Caphtorim, coming from Caphtor,[*c] exterminated them, settling there in place of them.)
24 ‘Break camp, set out and cross the wadi Arnon. See, I am putting Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, at your mercy, and his country too. Set about the conquest; engage him in battle.
25 Today and henceforth I spread the terror and fear of you among the peoples under all heaven: all who hear the sound of your coming will tremble and be in dread.”
The conquest of Sihon’s kingdom
26 ‘So from the wilderness of Kedemoth I sent envoys to Sihon king of Heshbon with this message of peace:
27 I mean to pass through your land. I shall go my way, straying neither right nor left.
28 What food I eat, sell me in return for money; and I will pay for all the water I drink. Only give me leave to march through, just as the sons of Esau who live in Seir gave me leave,
29 and the Moabites who live in Ar, until I cross the Jordan into the land that Yahweh our God is giving to us.
30 ‘But Sihon king of Heshbon would not give us leave to pass through his land: Yahweh your God has made his spirit obstinate and his heart stubborn, so as to leave him at your mercy, as he still is.
31 And Yahweh said to me, “You see, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land over to you. Set about the conquest; seize his land.”
32 Sihon then, with all his people, marched out against us to give battle at Jahaz.
33 And Yahweh our God delivered him over to us: we defeated him, with his sons and all his people.
34 Then we captured all his cities and laid whole towns under ban, men, women, children; we spared nothing
35 but the livestock which we took as our spoil, as also the plunder from the towns we captured.
36 From Aroer on the height above the wadi Arnon, and from the town at the bottom of the ravine, as far as Gilead, not one town was beyond our reach; Yahweh our God delivered them all over to us.
37 The country of the Ammonites alone you did not go near, neither the region of wadi Jabbok nor the towns of the hill country, nor anywhere forbidden us by Yahweh our God.