Deuteronomy 9

1 “Hear, Israel: today you are crossing the Jordan to take over nations greater and stronger than yourselves, cities great and walled up to heaven — 2 a people great and many and tall, the sons of Anak, whom you know, and about whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand in front of the children of Anak?’ 3 And you are to know today that the Lord your God is the one who goes ahead of you. He is a consuming fire. He will destroy them and turn them back in front of you, and you will destroy them, as the Lord said to you. 4 Do not say in your heart, when the Lord your God has destroyed these nations in front of you, ‘It is for my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to take this good land.’ But it is because of the ungodliness of these nations that the Lord will destroy them from in front of you. 5 It is not for your righteousness, and not for the holiness of your heart, that you are going in to take their land — but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is destroying them in front of you, and so that he may confirm the covenant the Lord swore to our fathers, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. 6 And you are to know today that it is not for your righteous acts that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to take, for you are a stiff-necked people.

7 Remember, do not forget, how much you provoked the Lord your God in the wilderness. From the day you came out of Egypt until you came to this place, you have gone on disobeying the Lord. 8 At Horeb too you provoked the Lord, and the Lord was angry enough with you to destroy you — 9 when I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant the Lord made with you, and I was on the mountain forty days and forty nights, eating no bread and drinking no water. 10 And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God; and on them were written all the words the Lord spoke to you on the mountain, on the day of the assembly. 11 And after forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 And the Lord said to me: Get up and go down from here quickly, because your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have gone astray. They have turned aside quickly out of the way I commanded them, and have made themselves a cast image. 13 And the Lord spoke to me. He said: I have spoken to you once and again. I have seen this people, and it is a stiff-necked people. 14 Now let me alone, and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation great and strong and more numerous than this one.

15 And I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to heaven; and the two tablets were in my two hands. [a] 16 And when I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God and had made yourselves a cast image, and had turned aside quickly out of the way the Lord had commanded you to keep, 17 then I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them in front of you. 18 And I made my plea before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights, eating no bread and drinking no water, because of all the sins you had sinned in doing evil before the Lord God and provoking him. 19 And I was terrified because of the fury and the anger, because the Lord was provoked with you enough to destroy you; and the Lord listened to me that time as well. 20 And he was angry with Aaron enough to destroy him, and I prayed for Aaron too at that time. 21 And your sin, the thing you had made, the calf — I took it and burned it with fire and pounded it and ground it down until it was fine; and it became like dust, and I threw the dust into the brook that runs down from the mountain.

22 And at Burning, and at Testing, and at the Graves of Craving, you provoked the Lord. [b] 23 And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh-barnea and said, Go up and take the land I am giving you, then you disobeyed the word of the Lord your God, and did not trust him, and did not listen to his voice. 24 You have been disobedient in the things of the Lord from the day he first became known to you.

25 And I prayed before the Lord forty days and forty nights, the same as I had prayed before, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. 26 And I prayed to God and said: Lord, King of gods, do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you ransomed, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with your great power and with your strong hand and with your uplifted arm. [c] 27 Remember Abraham and Isaac and Jacob your servants, to whom you swore by yourself. Do not look at the hardness of heart of this people, and their ungodliness, and their sins — 28 in case the people of the land you brought us out of should say, ‘Because the Lord could not bring them into the land he spoke to them about, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29 And these are your people and your portion, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with your great strength and with your uplifted arm.”