Study Desk

who goes before you looking for the best places to camp, guiding you with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day.

Instead, your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will lead the people into the land. Encourage him, for he will lead Israel as they take possession of it.

As for you, turn around now and go on back through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.'

"Then you confessed, ‘We have sinned against the Lord ! We will go into the land and fight for it, as the Lord our God has commanded us.' So your men strapped on their weapons, thinking it would be easy to attack the hill country.

"But the Lord told me to tell you, ‘Do not attack, for I am not with you. If you go ahead on your own, you will be crushed by your enemies.'

So you stayed there at Kadesh for a long time.

"Then we turned around and headed back across the wilderness toward the Red Sea, just as the Lord had instructed me, and we wandered around in the region of Mount Seir for a long time.

Do not bother them, for I have given them all the hill country around Mount Seir as their property, and I will not give you even one square foot of their land.

If you need food to eat or water to drink, pay them for it.

For the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the Lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing."'

He had done the same for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir, for he destroyed the Horites so they could settle there in their place. The descendants of Esau live there to this day.

Sell us food to eat and water to drink, and we will pay for it. All we want is permission to pass through your land.

We took all the livestock as plunder for ourselves, along with anything of value from the towns we ransacked.

"The Lord our God also helped us conquer Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Gorge, and the town in the gorge, and the whole area as far as Gilead. No town had walls too strong for us.

"Next we turned and headed for the land of Bashan, where King Og and his entire army attacked us at Edrei.

But the Lord told me, ‘Do not be afraid of him, for I have given you victory over Og and his entire army, and I will give you all his land. Treat him just as you treated King Sihon of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon.'

But we kept all the livestock for ourselves and took plunder from all the towns.

"At that time I gave Joshua this charge: ‘You have seen for yourself everything the Lord your God has done to these two kings. He will do the same to all the kingdoms on the west side of the Jordan.

Do not be afraid of the nations there, for the Lord your God will fight for you.'

Instead, commission Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead the people across the Jordan. He will give them all the land you now see before you as their possession.'