The Lord your God is about to go ahead of you; he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt

the one who was constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp. He appeared by fire at night and cloud by day, to show you the way you ought to go.

However, Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, will go. Encourage him, because he will enable Israel to inherit the land.

But the Lord told me: “Tell them this: ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you and you will be defeated by your enemies.’”

(That also is considered to be a land of the Rephaites. The Rephaites lived there originally; the Ammonites call them Zamzummites.

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

The Lord said to me, “Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession.”

Commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because he will lead these people over and will enable them to inherit the land you will see.”

And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this whole law that I am about to share with you today?

Moreover, because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power

to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you and brought you here this day to give you their land as your property.

for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a jealous God and his anger will erupt against you and remove you from the land.

We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments before the Lord our God, just as he demands.”

and he delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy!

He, the God who leads you, will expel the nations little by little. You will not be allowed to destroy them all at once lest the wild animals overrun you.

He will hand over their kings to you and you will erase their very names from memory. Nobody will be able to resist you until you destroy them.

Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you because you would not obey him.

They include the Anakites, a numerous and tall people whom you know about and of whom it is said, “Who is able to resist the Anakites?”

For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger that threatened to destroy you. But he listened to me this time as well.

I lay flat on the ground before the Lord for forty days and nights, for he had said he would destroy you.