Study Desk

So you will not pollute the land in which you are; because blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is poured out on it except with the blood of the one who poured it out.

Choose for yourselves wise and discerning and knowledgeable men for each of your tribes, and I will appoint them as your leaders.'

And so I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and then I appointed them as leaders over you as commanders of groups of thousands and commanders of groups of hundreds and commanders of groups of fifties and commanders of groups of tens as officials for your tribes.

You must not be partial in your judgment; hear out the small person as also the great person; do not be intimidated by any person, because the judgment is God's; and the case that is too difficult for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it out.'

"Then all of you approached me, and you said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them explore the land for us, and let them bring back a report to us concerning the way that we should take and concerning the cities that we shall come to.'

Yahweh your God, who is going before you, will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

who goes before you on your way, seeking a place for your encampment, in fire at night and in a cloud by day, to show you the way that you should go.

"Then we turned and set out toward the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as Yahweh told me, and we went around Mount Seir for many days.

Do not get involved in battle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a foot's breadth of it; since I have given Mount Seir as a possession for Esau.

And Yahweh said to me, ‘You shall not attack Moab, and you shall not engage in war with them, for I will not give you any of his land as a possession; I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.'

When you approach the border of the Ammonites, you shall not harass them, and you shall not get involved in battle with them, for I have not given the land of the Ammonites to you as a possession; because I have given it to the descendants of Lot as a possession.

just as he did for the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them and dispossessed them, and then they settled in their place up to this day.

Food for money you shall sell me, so that I may eat, and water for money you will give to me, so that I may drink; just let me cross on foot.

Just as the descendants of Esau did for me, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, until I cross the Jordan into the land that Yahweh our God is giving to us.'

Then Sihon and all his people came out to meet us for battle at Jahaz.

We took only the livestock as spoil for ourselves, and also the booty of the cities that we had captured.

"Then we turned, and we went up the road to Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us, he and all of his army for the battle at Edrei.

And Yahweh said to me, ‘You should not fear him, for I have given him and all of his army and his land into your hand. And so you will do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites, who was reigning in Heshbon.'

But all of the livestock and the booty of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves.

(For only Og, king of Bashan, was left from the remnant of the Rephaim. Indeed, his bedstead—it was a bedstead of iron. It is in Rabbah of the Ammonites. Nine cubits is its length, and four cubits is its width according to the cubit of a man.)