The Bible

Deuteronomy Chapter 9

¹Listen, Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, great cities fortified up to the sky, ²a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim. [They are] known to you, and you have heard [said about them], "Who can stand before the sons of Anak?" ³Know therefore today that it is Yahweh your God who is going over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you. You'll drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh has told you.

⁴Don't say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, "For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land;" because Yahweh drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations. ⁵You are not going in to possess their land because of your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart. It is because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh your God is driving them out from before you. And that he may establish the word which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ⁶Know therefore that Yahweh your God doesn't give you this good land to possess for your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. ⁷Remember, and don't forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. ⁸Also in Horeb you provoked Yahweh to wrath, and Yahweh was angry with you [even enough] to destroy you. ⁹When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰Yahweh delivered to me the two stone tablets written with God's finger. All the words which Yahweh told you on the mountain from the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly [are written] on them.

¹¹It happened at the end of forty days and forty nights that Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. ¹²Yahweh said to me, "Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from what I commanded them. They have made a cast-metal image for themselves!"

¹³Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me, saying, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. ¹⁴Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and wipe their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they."

¹⁵So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶I looked, and see, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a cast-metal calf. You had quickly turned away from what Yahweh had commanded you. ¹⁷I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. ¹⁸I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing what was evil in Yahweh's sight, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁹For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure Yahweh was angry against you, [enough fury] to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time as well. ²⁰Yahweh was angry [enough] with Aaron to destroy him. I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. ²¹I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain. ²²At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to wrath. ²³When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, "Go up and possess the land which I have given you", you rebelled against Yahweh your God's commandment, and you didn't believe him or listen to his voice. ²⁴You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you. ²⁵So for the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, I fell down before Yahweh, because Yahweh had said he would destroy you. ²⁶I prayed to Yahweh, and said, "LordOfMine Yahweh, don't destroy your people and your inheritance that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don't look at the stubbornness of this people, or at their wickedness, or at their sin, ²⁸otherwise [those of] the land you brought us out from [might] say, 'Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.' ²⁹Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm."