Deuteronomy 9

1 Hear, Israel: you are to pass over the Jordan this day, 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 this day, that YHWH 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 to perish quickly, as YHWH has spoken to you.

4 Do not say in your heart, after YHWH your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, "For my righteousness YHWH has brought me in to possess this land"; because YHWH 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 YHWH does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

6 Know therefore, that YHWH your God doesn't give you this good land to possess it for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.

7 Remember, do not forget, how you provoked YHWH your God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that you went forth out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against YHWH.

8 Also in Horeb you provoked YHWH to wrath, and YHWH was angry with you to destroy you.

9 When I was gone up onto the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, even the tablets of the covenant which YHWH made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.

10 YHWH delivered to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which YHWH spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

11 It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that YHWH gave me the two tablets of stone, even the tablets of the covenant.

12 YHWH 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 aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image."

13 Furthermore YHWH spoke to me, saying, "I have seen this people, and look, it is a stiff-necked people:

14 let 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: and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

16 I looked, and look, you had sinned against YHWH your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf: you had turned aside quickly out of the way which YHWH had commanded you.

17 I took hold of the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.

18 I fell down before YHWH, 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 the sight of YHWH, to provoke him to anger.

19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, with which YHWH was angry against you to destroy you. But YHWH listened to me that time also.

20 YHWH was very angry with Aaron to destroy him: and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

21 I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust: and I cast its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain.

22 At Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you provoked YHWH to wrath.

23 When YHWH sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, "Go up and possess the land which I have given you"; then you rebelled against the commandment of YHWH your God, and you did not believe him, nor listen to his voice.

24 You have been rebellious against YHWH from the day that I knew you.

25 So I fell down before YHWH the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because YHWH had said he would destroy you.

26 I prayed to God, and said, "Lord YHWH, do not 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; do not look to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin,

28 lest the land you brought us out from say, 'Because YHWH 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 wilderness.'

29 Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm."