¹These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on the side of the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Desert Plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Di Zahab.

²It is eleven days from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.

³It was in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel all that Yahweh had commanded him concerning them.

⁴After he had struck Sihon the king of the Amorite, who dwelled in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who dwelled in Ashtaroth, in Edrei.

⁵On the side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound this instruction, saying:

⁶Yahweh our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying: You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.

⁷Turn and set out for yourselves, and go to the hill country of the Amorite and to all its neighbors, in the Desert Plain, in the hill country, in the Shephelah, in the Negev, and on the coast of the sea, the land of the Canaanite and the Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

⁸See, I have set the land before your face; go in and occupy the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their seed after them.

⁹I said to you at that time, saying: I am not able to carry you by myself alone.

¹⁰Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and look, you are today like the stars of the skies for multitude.

¹¹May Yahweh, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are, and bless you, just as he has spoken to you.

¹²How can I by myself alone carry your load and your burden and your strife?

¹³Give for yourselves men, wise, discerning, and known, for your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.

¹⁴You answered me and said: The word which you have spoken is good to do.

¹⁵I took the heads of your tribes, wise and known men, and I set them as heads over you, officials of thousands, officials of hundreds, officials of fifties, officials of tens, and officers for your tribes.

¹⁶I commanded your judges at that time, saying: Hear the case between your brothers, and judge in righteousness between a man and his brother and his sojourner.

¹⁷You shall not pay regard to faces in justice; you shall hear the small and the great alike; you shall not be afraid of the face of anyone, for the justice is God's; and the word that is too hard for you, bring it near to me, and I will hear it.

¹⁸I commanded you at that time all the words that you are to do.

¹⁹We set out from Horeb and walked through all that great and dreadful wilderness which you saw, by the way of the hill country of the Amorite, just as Yahweh our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

²⁰I said to you: You have come to the hill country of the Amorite which Yahweh our God is giving us.

²¹See, Yahweh your God has set the land before your face; go up, occupy it, just as Yahweh, the God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not be afraid and do not be dismayed.

²²All of you drew near to me and said: Let us send out men before our face, and let them search out the land for us, and let them bring back word to us of the way by which we will go up, and of the cities to which we will come.

²³The word went well in my eyes, and I took from you twelve men, one man to the tribe.

²⁴They turned and went up into the hill country and came as far as the wadi of Eshcol, and spied out it.

²⁵They took some of the fruit of the land in their hand, and brought it down to us, and brought us back word, and said: The land that Yahweh our God is giving us is good.

²⁶But you were not willing to come up, and you rebelled against the mouth of Yahweh your God.

²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said: In the hatred of Yahweh for us, he brought us out from the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorite, to wipe us out.

²⁸Where are we going up? Our brothers have melted our hearts, saying: A people great and higher than we, cities great and fortified up to the skies, and also the children of the Anakites we saw there.

²⁹I said to you: Do not be terrified, and do not be afraid of them.

³⁰Yahweh your God who goes before your face, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.

³¹And in the wilderness, where you saw that Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you walked until you came to this place.

³²Yet in this word you did not believe in Yahweh your God.

³³The one who goes before your face on the way, to scout out a place for you to camp, in fire by night, to let you see the way you will go on it, and in a cloud by day.

³⁴Yahweh heard the sound of your words and was angry, and he swore, saying:

³⁵Not a man among these men of this evil generation will see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers.

³⁶Except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he will see it, and to him I will give the land on which he trod, and to his sons, because he filled after Yahweh.

³⁷Yahweh was angry with me also, on your account, saying: You also will not go in there.

³⁸Joshua son of Nun, who stands before your face, he will go in there; strengthen him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it.

³⁹And your little ones, whom you said would be plunder, and your sons, who today do not know good and evil, they will go in there, and to them I will give it, and they will take possession of it.

⁴⁰But you, turn yourselves and set out toward the wilderness by the way of the Sea of Reeds.

⁴¹You answered and said to me: We have sinned against Yahweh; we ourselves will go up and fight, according to all that Yahweh our God commanded us. And you each girded on the weapons of his war, and you counted it easy to go up the mountain.

⁴²Yahweh said to me: Say to them, Do not go up, and do not fight, for I am not in your midst, and you will not be struck before the face of your enemies.

⁴³I spoke to you, and you did not hear, and you rebelled against the mouth of Yahweh, and you seethed in presumption and went up the mountain.

⁴⁴The Amorite who dwelled in that mountain came out to meet you, and chased you as the bees do, and crushed you in Seir as far as Hormah.

⁴⁵You returned and wept before the face of Yahweh, but Yahweh did not hear your voice and did not give ear to you.

⁴⁶So you dwelled in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you dwelled.