1 Hear, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky, 2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?” 3 Know therefore today, that Yehovah your God is he who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them, and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out, and make them perish quickly, as Yehovah has spoken to you.
4 Don’t say in your heart, after Yehovah your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, “For my righteousness Yehovah has brought me in to possess this land;” because Yehovah drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations. 5 Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Yehovah your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which Yehovah swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6 Know therefore, that Yehovah your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people. 7 Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked Yehovah your God to wrath in the backcountry. From the day that you left the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yehovah. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked Yehovah to wrath, and Yehovah was angry with you to destroy you. 9 When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the contract which Yehovah made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Yehovah delivered to me the two stone tablets written with God’s finger. On them were all the words which Yehovah spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly.
11 It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that Yehovah gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the contract. 12 Yehovah said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!”
13 Furthermore Yehovah spoke to me, saying, “I have seen this people, and look, it is a stiff-necked people. 14 Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”
15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the contract were in my two hands. 16 I looked, and there, you had sinned against Yehovah your God. You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which Yehovah had commanded you. 17 I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. 18 I fell down before Yehovah, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yehovah’s sight, to provoke him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which Yehovah was angry against you to destroy you. But Yehovah listened to me that time also. 20 Yehovah was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain. 22 At Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you provoked Yehovah to wrath. 23 When Yehovah sent you from Kadesh Barne’a, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of Yehovah your God, and you didn’t believe him, nor listen to his voice. 24 You have been rebellious against Yehovah from the day that I knew you. 25 So I fell down before Yehovah the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Yehovah had said he would destroy you. 26 I prayed to Yehovah, and said, “Master Yehovah, don’t destroy your people and your inheritance, that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their sin, 28 lest the land you brought us out from say, ‘Because Yehovah was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the backcountry.’ 29 Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”