Chapter 2

¹ And we turned and departed into the wilderness, by the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord spoke to me, and we compassed mount Seir many days. ² And the Lord said to me, ^{3 1}Ye have compassed this mount long enough; turn therefore toward the north. ⁴ And charge the people, saying, Ye are going through the borders of your brethren the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir; and they shall fear you, and dread you greatly. ⁵ Do not engage in war against them, for I will not give you of their land even enough to set your foot upon, for I have given mount Seir to the children of Esau as an inheritance. ⁶ Buy food of them for money and eat, and ye shall receive water of them by measure for money, and drink. ⁷ For the Lord our God has blessed thee in every work of thy hands. Consider how thou wentest through that great and terrible wilderness: behold, the Lord thy God has been with thee forty years; thou didst not lack any thing.

⁸ And we passed by our brethren the children of Esau, who dwelt in Seir, by the way of Araba from Ælon and from Gesion Gaber; and we turned and passed by the way of the desert of Moab. ⁹ And the Lord said to me, Do not ye quarrel with the Moabites, and do not engage in war with them; for 1 will not give you of their land for an inheritance, for I have given Aroer to the children of Lot to inherit. ¹⁰ Formerly the Ommin dwelt in

232

it, a great and numerous nation and powerful, like the Enakim. ¹¹ These also shall be accounted ²Raphain like the Enakim; and the Moabites call them Ommin. ¹² And the Chorrhite dwelt in Seir before, and the sons of Esau destroyed them, and utterly consumed them from before them; and they dwelt in their place, as Israel did to the land of his inheritance, which the Lord gave to them. ¹³ Now then, arise ye, said I, and depart, and cross the valley of Zaret.

¹⁴ And the days in which we travelled from Cades Barne till we crossed the valley of Zaret, were thirty and eight years, until the whole generation of the men of war failed, dying out of the camp, as the Lord God sware to them. ¹⁵ And the hand of the Lord was upon them to destroy them out of the midst of the camp, until they were consumed.

¹⁶ And it came to pass when all the men of war dying out of the midst of the people had fallen, ¹⁷ that the Lord spoke to me, saying, ¹⁸ Thou shalt pass over this day the borders of Moab ³to Aroer; ¹⁹ and ye shall draw nigh to the children of Amman: do not quarrel with them, nor wage war with them; for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Amman for an inheritance, because I have given it to the children of Lot for an inheritance. ²⁰ It shall be accounted a land of Raphain, for the Raphain dwelt there before, and the Ammanites call them Zochommin. ²¹ A great nation and populous, and mightier than you, as also the Enakim: yet the Lord destroyed them from before them, and they inherited their land, and they dwelt there instead of them until this day. ²² As they did to the children of Esau that dwell in Seir, even as they destroyed the Chorrhite from before them, and inherited ⁴their country, and dwelt therein instead of them until this day. ²³ And the Evites who dwell in Asedoth to Gaza, and the Cappadocians who came out of Cappadocia, destroyed them, and dwelt in their room.

²⁴ Now then arise and depart, and pass over the valley of Arnon: behold, I have delivered into thy hands Seon the king of Esebon the Amorite, and his land: begin to inherit it: engage in war with him this day. ²⁵ Begin to put thy terror and thy fear on the face of all the nations under heaven, who shall be troubled when they have heard thy name, and shall be in anguish ⁵before thee.

²⁶ And I sent ambassadors from the wilderness of Kedamoth to Seon king of Esebon with peaceable words, saying, ²⁷ I will pass through thy land: I will go by the road, I will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. ²⁸ Thou shalt give me food for money, and I will eat; and thou shalt give me water for money, and I will drink, I will only go through on my feet: ²⁹ as the sons of Esau did to me, who dwelt in Seir, and the Moabites who dwelt in Aroer, until I shall have passed Jordan into the land which the Lord our God gives us. ³⁰ And

233

Seon king of Esebon would not that we should pass by him, because the Lord, our God hardened his spirit, and made his heart stubborn, that he might be delivered into thy hands, as on this day.

³¹ And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have begun to deliver before thee Seon the king of Esebon the Amorite, and his land, and do thou begin to inherit his land. ³² And Seon the king of Esebon came forth to meet us, he and all his people to war at Jassa. ³³ And the Lord our God delivered him before our face, and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. ³⁴ And we took possession of all his cities at that time; and we utterly destroyed every city in succession, and their wives, and their children; we left no living prey. ³⁵ Only we took the cattle captive, and took the spoil of the cities. From Aroer, which is by the brink of the brook of Arnon, and the city which is in the valley, and as far as the mount of Galaad; there was not a city which escaped us: the Lord our God delivered all of them into our hands. ³⁷ Only we did not draw near to the children of Amman, even all the parts bordering on the brook Jaboc, and the cities in the mountain country, as the Lord our God charged us.