Study Desk

From the desert of Kedemoth I sent messengers to Sihon king of Heshbon offering peace and saying,

"Let us pass through your country. We will stay on the main road; we will not turn aside to the right or to the left.

Sell us food to eat and water to drink for their price in silver. Only let us pass through on foot-

as the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, did for us-until we cross the Jordan into the land the LORD our God is giving us."

But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done.

The LORD said to me, "See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land."

When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz,

the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army.

At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them-men, women and children. We left no survivors.

But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves.

From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the gorge, even as far as Gilead, not one town was too strong for us. The LORD our God gave us all of them.

But in accordance with the command of the LORD our God, you did not encroach on any of the land of the Ammonites, neither the land along the course of the Jabbok nor that around the towns in the hills.