1 "Hear, Israel: today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and drive out nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified up to the sky,
2 a people big and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them, and you have heard it said, 'Who can stand up to the descendants of Anak?'
3 Understand today that the LORD your God is the one who crosses over ahead of you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you, so that you will drive them out and wipe them out quickly, as the LORD has promised you.
4 "When the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, 'The LORD has brought me in to possess this land because of my righteousness.' No, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you.
5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to possess their land. It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you, and in order to fulfill the word the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
7 "Remember, and never forget, how you provoked the LORD your God to anger in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.
8 Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to anger, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.
9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant the LORD had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water.
10 The LORD gave me the two stone tablets written by the finger of God. On them were all the words the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the middle of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11 At the end of the forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
12 Then the LORD said to me, 'Get up and go down from here at once, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn aside from the way I commanded them; they have made themselves a cast idol.'
13 The LORD also said to me, 'I have watched this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people.
14 Leave me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they are.'
15 "So I turned and came down from the mountain while it was burning with fire, with the two tablets of the covenant in my two hands.
16 And I looked and saw that you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a calf cast in metal. You had been quick to turn aside from the way the LORD had commanded you.
17 So I took hold of the two tablets, threw them from my hands, and smashed them before your eyes.
18 Then I fell down before the LORD as before, for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed in doing evil in the LORD's eyes and provoking him to anger.
19 For I dreaded the anger and wrath with which the LORD was furious with you, ready to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time as well.
20 The LORD was very angry with Aaron too, ready to destroy him, and at that time I prayed for Aaron as well.
21 Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it in the fire. I crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was as fine as dust, and threw the dust into the stream that flowed down the mountain.
22 "At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah you also provoked the LORD to anger.
23 And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea and said, 'Go up and possess the land I have given you,' you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You did not trust him or listen to his voice.
24 You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day I first knew you.
25 "So I lay prostrate before the LORD for those forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
26 I prayed to the LORD and said, 'Lord GOD, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance, whom you redeemed by your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.
27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, or their sin,
28 or the land you brought us out of will say, "Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to kill them in the wilderness."
29 Yet they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.'