They possessed his land and that of King Og of Bashan – both of whom were Amorite kings in the Transjordan, to the east.

Then, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was ablaze, all your tribal leaders and elders approached me.

But now, why should we die, because this intense fire will consume us! If we keep hearing the voice of the Lord our God we will die!

Do whatever is proper and good before the Lord so that it may go well with you and that you may enter and occupy the good land that he promised your ancestors,

He delivered us from there so that he could give us the land he had promised our ancestors.

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

for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you.

you must not fear them. You must carefully recall what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt,

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.

Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today.

Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications.

Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn people!

Now at the end of the forty days and nights the Lord presented me with the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

Moreover, he said to me, “I have taken note of these people; they are a stubborn lot!

Stand aside and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”

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

I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark.”

Then I turned, went down the mountain, and placed the tablets into the ark I had made – they are still there, just as the Lord commanded me.

Then he said to me, “Get up, set out leading the people so they may go and possess the land I promised to give to their ancestors.”