The Wilderness Years

And when Jehovah sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of Jehovah your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

Ye have been rebellious against Jehovah from the day that I knew you.

So I fell down before Jehovah the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Jehovah had said he would destroy you.

And I prayed unto Jehovah, and said, O Lord Jehovah, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, that thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, that thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin,

lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because Jehovah was not able to bring them into the land which he promised unto them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy great power and by thine outstretched arm.

At that time Jehovah said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.

And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.

So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in my hand.

And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which Jehovah spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and Jehovah gave them unto me.

And I turned and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are as Jehovah commanded me.

(And the children of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.

From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of brooks of water.

At that time Jehovah set apart the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, to stand before Jehovah to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.

Wherefore Levi hath no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; Jehovah is his inheritance, according as Jehovah thy God spake unto him.)

And I stayed in the mount, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights: and Jehovah hearkened unto me that time also; Jehovah would not destroy thee.

And Jehovah said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people; and they shall go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.

And now, Israel, what doth Jehovah thy God require of thee, but to fear Jehovah thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

to keep the commandments of Jehovah, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

Behold, unto Jehovah thy God belongeth heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that is therein.

Only Jehovah had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as at this day.

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

For Jehovah your God, he is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the terrible, who regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward.

He doth execute justice for the fatherless and widow, and loveth the sojourner, in giving him food and raiment.