Deuteronomy 9
Open in the reader1Hear, O Strives-with-God: Today you are about to cross the Descender 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 children of Long-Necked. You know about them, and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Long-Necked?”
3But understand that today He-Who-Is 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 He-Who-Is has promised you.
4When He-Who-Is your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness He-Who-Is has brought me in to possess this land.” Rather, He-Who-Is 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 He-Who-Is your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, to Father-of-a-Multitude, He-Laughs, and Heel-Grabber.
6Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that He-Who-Is 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 He-Who-Is your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Two-Straits until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against He-Who-Is.
8At Desolate you provoked He-Who-Is, 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 He-Who-Is made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
10Then He-Who-Is gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that He-Who-Is spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly.
11And at the end of forty days and forty nights, He-Who-Is gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
12And He-Who-Is said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Two-Straits, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”
13He-Who-Is 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 from 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 He-Who-Is your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that He-Who-Is 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 He-Who-Is 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 He-Who-Is and provoking Him to anger.
19For I was afraid of the anger and wrath that He-Who-Is had directed against you, enough to destroy you. But He-Who-Is listened to me this time as well.
20He-Who-Is was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron.
21And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, 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 He-Who-Is at Burning, at Testing, and at Graves-of-Longing.
23And when He-Who-Is sent you out from Devoted-Place-of-Wandering, He said, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of He-Who-Is your God. You neither believed Him nor obeyed Him.
24You have been rebelling against He-Who-Is since the day I came to know you.
25So I fell down before He-Who-Is for forty days and forty nights, because He-Who-Is had said He would destroy you.
26And I prayed to He-Who-Is and said, “O Lord He-Who-Is, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Two-Straits with a mighty hand.
27Remember Your servants Father-of-a-Multitude, He-Laughs, and Heel-Grabber. 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 He-Who-Is 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.”