¹Hear, O Israel: you are about to cross today the Jordan, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities large and fortified in the skies,

²A people great and high, the sons of the Anakites, whom you know, and you have heard it said: Who can stand before the sons of Anak?

³And you will know today that Yahweh your God is the one crossing over before you, an eating fire. He will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you, and you will dispossess them and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh spoke to you.

⁴Do not say in your heart, when Yahweh your God drives out them from before your face, saying: In my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to take possession of this land; but in the wickedness of these nations Yahweh is dispossessing them from before your face.

⁵Not in your righteousness or in the uprightness of your heart are you going in to take possession of their land; rather, in the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God is dispossessing them from before your face, and so as to establish the word which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶And you will know that it is not for your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to take possession of it, for you are a people hard in the back of the neck.

⁷Remember, do not forget, how you angered Yahweh your God in the wilderness: from the day when you came out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebelling against Yahweh.

⁸And at Horeb you angered Yahweh, and Yahweh was angry with you, to destroy you.

⁹When I went up the mountain to take the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh cut with you, I dwelled on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food, and I did not drink water.

¹⁰And Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets written by the finger of God, and on them were all the words that Yahweh spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire on the day of the assembly.

¹¹And it was, at the end of forty days and forty nights, Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

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

¹³And Yahweh said to me, saying: I have seen this people, and look, it is a people hard in the back of the neck.

¹⁴Let go of me, and I will destroy them and wipe out their name from under the skies, and I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they.

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

¹⁶And I saw, and look, you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made yourselves a calf of cast metal; you had quickly turned aside from the way that Yahweh had commanded you.

¹⁷And I seized the two tablets, and I threw them from off my two hands, and I broke them before your eyes.

¹⁸And I threw myself down before Yahweh, like the first time, forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food, and I did not drink water, because of all your sin that you had sinned, by doing what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.

¹⁹For I was afraid in the face of the anger and the rage with which Yahweh was angry at you, so as to wipe you out; and Yahweh listened to me that time also.

²⁰And Yahweh was angry very with Aaron, to wipe him out; and I prayed also on behalf of Aaron at that time.

²¹And your sin, the calf that you had made, I took and burned it in the fire; then I crushed it, grinding it well until it was fine as dust, and I threw its dust into the wadi that comes down from the mountain.

²²And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you were provoking Yahweh to wrath.

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

²⁴You have been rebelling against Yahweh from the day I knew you.

²⁵And I fell prostrate before the face of Yahweh for the forty days and the forty nights that I lay prostrate, because Yahweh had said he would wipe you out.

²⁶And I prayed to Yahweh and said, 'Adonai Yahweh, do not ruin your people and your inheritance, whom you ransomed by your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.'

²⁷Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not turn toward the stubbornness of this people, or toward its wickedness, or toward its sin,

²⁸lest the land from which you brought us out say, 'Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land that he spoke to them of, and because of his hatred of them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.'

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