Bible Text & Cross-references:
Lest they should impute their victories to their own merits,
they are put in mind of their manifold rebellions and other sins, for which they should have been destroyed but God spared
them for his promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
1 Hear, O Israel: Thou shalt go over the Jordan *this day: to possess
nations very great, and stronger than thyself, cities great, and walled up to the sky,
2 A people great and tall, the sons of the Enacims, whom thou hast seen,
and heard of, against whom no man is able to stand.
3 Thou shalt know therefore this day that the Lord thy God himself will
pass over before thee, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before thy face
quickly, as he hath spoken to thee.
4 Say not in thy heart, when the Lord thy God shall have destroyed them
in thy sight: For my justice hath the Lord brought me in to possess this land, whereas these nations are destroyed for their
wickedness.
5 For it is not for thy justices, and the uprightness of thy heart that
thou shalt go in to possess their lands: but because they have done wickedly, they are destroyed at thy coming in: and that
the Lord might accomplish his word, which he promised by oath to thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 Know therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this excellent
land in possession for thy justices; for thou art a very stiff-necked people.
7 Remember and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath
in the wilderness. From the day that thou camest out of Egypt unto this place, thou hast always strove against the Lord.
8 *For in Horeb also thou didst provoke him, and he was angry, and would
have destroyed thee,
9 *When I went up into the mount, to receive the tables of stone, the
tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you: and I continued in the mount forty days and nights, neither eating bread,
nor drinking water.
10 *And the Lord gave me two tables of stone written with the finger
of God, and containing all the words that he spoke to you in the mount from the midst of the fire, when the people were assembled
together.
11 And when forty days were passed, and as many nights, the Lord gave
me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant;
12 And said to me: *Arise, and go down from hence quickly: for thy people,
which thou hast brought out of Egypt, have quickly forsaken the way, that thou hast shewed them, and have made to themselves
a molten idol.
13 And again the Lord said to me: I see that this people is stiff-necked:
14 Let me alone that I may destroy them, and abolish their name from
under heaven, and set thee over a nation that is greater and stronger than this.
15 And when I came down from the burning mount, and held the two tables
of the covenant with both hands,
16 And saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made
to yourselves a molten calf, and had quickly forsaken his way, which he had shewed you:
17 I cast the tables out of my hands, and broke them in your sight.
18 And I fell down before the Lord, as before, forty days and nights,
neither eating bread nor drinking water, for all your sins, which you had committed against the Lord, and had provoked him
to wrath:
19 For I feared his indignation and anger, wherewith being moved against
you, he would have destroyed you. And the Lord heard me this time also.
20 And he was exceeding angry against Aaron also, and would have destroyed
him, and I prayed in like manner for him.
21 And your sin that you had committed, that is, the calf, I took, and
burned it with fire, and breaking it into pieces, until it was as small as dust, I threw it into the torrent which cometh
down from the mountain.
22 *At the burning also, and at the place of temptation, and at the graves
of lust you provoked the Lord:
23 And when he sent you from Cades-barne, saying: Go up, and possess
the land that I have given you, and you slighted the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him, neither would
you hearken to his voice:
24 But were always rebellious from the day that I began to know you.
25 And I lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights, in which
I humbly besought him, that he would not destroy you as he had threatened:
26 And praying, I said: O Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thy inheritance,
which thou hast redeemed in thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.
27 Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: look not on the
stubbornness of this people, nor on their wickedness and sin:
28 Lest perhaps the inhabitants of the land, out of which thou hast brought
us, say: The Lord could not bring them into the land, that he promised them, and he hated them: therefore he brought them
out, that he might kill them in the wilderness,
29 Who are thy people and thy inheritance, whom thou hast brought out
by thy great strength, and in thy stretched-out arm.
____________________
*
1: Year of the World 2553.
8: Exodus xvii. 6. and xix. 3.
9: Exodus xiv. 18.
10: Exodus xxxi. 18. and xxxii. 15.
12: Exodus xxxii. 7.
22: Numbers xi. 1. and xvi. 2. and xxi. 5.