The Wilderness Years

These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Suf, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.

In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel, according to all that the LORD had given him in commandment to them;

after he had struck Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth, at Edrei.

Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to declare this law, saying,

“The LORD our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, ‘You have lived long enough at this mountain.

Turn, and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all the places near there, in the Arabah, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the South, and by the seashore, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

Behold, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their seed after them.’”

I spoke to you at that time, saying, “I am not able to bear you myself alone.

The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day as the stars of the sky for multitude.

The LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are, and bless you, as he has promised you!

How can I myself alone bear your problems, your burdens, and your strife?

Take wise men of understanding and well known according to your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.”

You answered me, and said, “The thing which you have spoken is good to do.”

So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and captains of fifties, and captains of tens, and officers, according to your tribes.

I commanded your judges at that time, saying, “Hear cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is living with him.

You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.”

I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do.

We traveled from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.

I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God gives to us.

Behold, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Don’t be afraid, neither be dismayed.”

You came near to me, everyone of you, and said, “Let us send men before us, that they may search the land for us, and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up, and the cities to which we shall come.”

The thing pleased me well. I took twelve men of you, one man for every tribe.

They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of Eshcol, and spied it out.

They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, “It is a good land which the LORD our God gives to us.”