Deuteronomy 2

1 “And we turned and set out into the wilderness by the road toward the Red Sea, as the Lord had told me, and we went around Mount Seir for many days. 2 And the Lord said to me: 3 You have gone around this mountain long enough; turn now toward the north. 4 And charge the people: You are going through the borders of your brothers the children of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you and greatly on their guard. 5 Do not go to war against them, because I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to set your foot on; I have given Mount Seir to the children of Esau as their inheritance. 6 Buy food from them for money and eat, and take water from them by measure for money and drink. 7 For the Lord our God has blessed you in every work of your hands. Think how you went through that great and terrible wilderness: for forty years now the Lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing. 8 And we passed by our brothers the children of Esau, who live in Seir, by the Arabah road from Elath and from Ezion-geber; and we turned and went by the road of the desert of Moab.

9 And the Lord said to me: Do not quarrel with the Moabites and do not go to war with them, because I will not give you any of their land as an inheritance; I have given Seir to the children of Lot to hold. 10 The Emim lived there before — a great and numerous and powerful nation, like the Anakim. 11 These too are counted as Rephaim, like the Anakim; and the Moabites call them Emim. [a] 12 And the Horite lived in Seir before, and the sons of Esau destroyed them and wiped them out from in front of them and settled in their place — just as Israel did with the land of its own inheritance, which the Lord gave them. 13 Now then, get up, I said, and set out and cross the valley of Zered. And we crossed the valley of Zered. 14 And the time we traveled from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the valley of Zered was thirty-eight years, until the whole generation of fighting men had gone, dying out of the camp, as the Lord God had sworn to them. 15 And the hand of the Lord was on them, to wipe them out from the middle of the camp until they were gone.

16 And when all the fighting men had fallen and died out from among the people, 17 the Lord spoke to me. He said: 18 Today you are to cross the borders of Moab, Seir; 19 and you will come near the children of Ammon. Do not quarrel with them and do not make war on them, because I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon as an inheritance; I have given it to the children of Lot as their inheritance. 20 That too is counted as a land of Rephaim, for the Rephaim lived there before, and the Ammonites call them Zamzummim — 21 a great and numerous nation, stronger than you, like the Anakim; and the Lord destroyed them from in front of them, and they took their land and settled there in their place, to this day. 22 It is what he did for the children of Esau who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horite from in front of them, and they took their country and settled there in their place, to this day. 23 And the Avvim, who lived in Hazerim as far as Gaza — the Cappadocians, who came out of Cappadocia, destroyed them and settled in their place. [b]

24 Now get up and set out and cross the valley of the Arnon. See, I have handed over into your hands Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take it; make war on him. 25 On this day begin to put the dread and the fear of you on the face of all the nations under heaven, who will be shaken when they hear your name, and will be in anguish before you. 26 And I sent envoys from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace. I said: 27 Let me pass through your land. I will go by the road; I will not turn aside to the right or to the left. 28 You are to give me food for money and I will eat, and give me water for money and I will drink; I only want to go through on foot — 29 as the sons of Esau did for me, who live in Seir, and the Moabites, who live in Aroer — until I have crossed the Jordan into the land the Lord our God is giving us. 30 But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, because the Lord our God hardened his spirit and made his heart firm, so that he would be handed over into your hands, as he is this day. [c] 31 And the Lord said to me: See, I have begun to hand Sihon the Amorite king of Heshbon and his land over to you; begin now to take his land for your own.

32 And Sihon king of Heshbon came out to meet us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. 33 And the Lord our God handed him over to us, and we struck him down, and his sons, and all his people. 34 And we took possession of all his cities at that time, and we destroyed every city completely — and their wives and their children; we left nothing alive. 35 Only the cattle we took for ourselves, and the plunder of the cities we captured. 36 From Aroer, which is on the edge of the brook of the Arnon, and the city that is in the valley, as far as the hill country of Gilead — there was not a city that escaped us; the Lord our God handed them all over into our hands. 37 Only we did not go near the children of Ammon — all the parts bordering the brook Jabbok, and the cities in the hill country — as the Lord our God had charged us.