The Wilderness Years

and when ADONAI sent you off from Kadesh-Barnea by saying, 'Go up and take possession of the land I have given you,' you rebelled against the order of ADONAI your God - you neither trusted him nor heeded what he said.

You have been rebelling against ADONAI from the day I first knew you!

"So I fell down before ADONAI for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because ADONAI had said he would destroy you.

I prayed to ADONAI ; I said, 'Adonai ELOHIM! Don't destroy your people, your inheritance! You redeemed them through your greatness, you brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand!

Remember your servants Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov! Don't focus on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or on their sin.

Otherwise, the land you brought us out of will say, "It is because ADONAI wasn't able to bring them into the land he promised them and because he hated them that he has brought them out to kill them in the desert."

But in fact they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.'

"At that time ADONAI said to me, 'Cut yourself two stone tablets like the first ones, come up to me on the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood.

I will inscribe on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to put them in the ark.'

So I made an ark of acacia-wood and cut two stone tablets like the first, then climbed the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.

He inscribed the tablets with the same inscription as before, the Ten Words which ADONAI proclaimed to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly; and ADONAI gave them to me.

I turned, came down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made; and there they remain; as ADONAI ordered me.

"The people of Isra'el traveled from the wells of B'nei-Ya'akan to Moserah, where Aharon died and was buried; and El'azar his son took his place, serving in the office of cohen.

From there they traveled to Gudgod, and from Gudgod to Yotvatah, a region with running streams.

At that time ADONAI set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark for the covenant of ADONAI and to stand before ADONAI to serve him and to bless in his name, as they still do today.

This is why Levi has no share or inheritance with his brothers; ADONAI is his inheritance, as ADONAI your God had said to him.

"I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as previously; and ADONAI listened to me that time too -ADONAI would not destroy you.

Then ADONAI said to me, 'Get up, and go on your way at the head of the people, so that they can enter and take possession of the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.'

"So now, Isra'el, all that ADONAI your God asks from you is to fear ADONAI your God, follow all his ways, love him and serve ADONAI your God with all your heart and all your being;

to obey, for your own good, the mitzvot and regulations of ADONAI which I am giving you today.

See, the sky, the heaven beyond the sky, the earth and everything on it all belong to ADONAI your God.

Only ADONAI took enough pleasure in your ancestors to love them and choose their descendants after them -yourselves -above all peoples, as he still does today.

Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart; and don't be stiffnecked any longer!

For ADONAI your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God, who has no favorites and accepts no bribes.

He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing.