1   Listen, O Israel; this day you will cross the Jordan to occupy the territory of nations greater and more powerful than you, and great cities with walls towering to the sky. 2   They are great and tall people, the descendants of the Anakim, of whom you know, for you have heard it said, ‘Who can withstand the sons of Anak?’ 3   Know then this day that it is the Lord your God himself who goes at your head as a devouring fire; he will subdue them and destroy them at your approach; you shall drive them out and overwhelm them, as he promised you.

4   When the Lord your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourselves, ‘It is because of my own merit that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land.’ ^note 5   It is not because of your merit or your integrity that you are entering their land to occupy it; it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, and to fulfil the promise which the Lord made to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

6   Know then that it is not because of any merit of yours that the Lord your God is giving you this rich land to occupy; indeed, you are a stubborn people. 7   Remember and never forget, how you angered the Lord your God in the wilderness: from the day when you left Egypt until you came to this place you have defied the Lord. 8   In Horeb you roused the Lord's anger, and the Lord in his wrath was on the point of destroying you. 9   When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights without food or drink. 10   Then the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and upon them were all the words the Lord spoke to you out of the fire, upon the mountain on the day of the assembly.

Primary charge of Moses to the people 11   At the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, 12   the tablets of the covenant, and said to me, ‘Make haste down from the mountain because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have done a disgraceful thing. They have already turned aside from the way which I told them to follow and have cast for themselves an image of metal.’

13   Then the Lord said to me, ‘I have considered this people and I find them a stubborn people. 14   Let me be, and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and of you alone I will make a nation more powerful and numerous than they.’ 15   So I turned and went down the mountain, and it was ablaze; and I had the two tablets of the covenant in my hands. 16   When I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God and had cast for yourselves an image of a bull-calf, and had already turned aside from the way the Lord had told you to follow, 17   I took the two tablets and flung them down and shattered them in the sight of you all. 18   Then once again I lay prostrate before the Lord, forty days and forty nights without food or drink, on account of all the sins that you had committed, and because you had done what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord and provoked him to anger. 19   I dreaded the Lord's anger and his wrath which threatened to destroy you; and once again the Lord listened to me. 20   The Lord was greatly incensed with Aaron also and would have killed him; so I prayed for him as well at that same time. 21   I took the calf, that sinful thing that you had made, and burnt it and pounded it, grinding it until it was as fine as dust; then I flung its dust into the torrent that flowed down the mountain. 22   You also roused the Lord's anger at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. 23   Again, when the Lord sent you from Kadeshbarnea with orders to advance and occupy the land which he was giving you, you defied the Lord your God and did not trust him or obey him. 24   You were defiant from the day that the Lord ^note first knew you. 25   Forty days and forty nights I lay prostrate before the Lord because he had threatened to destroy you, 26   and I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy thy people, thy own possession, whom thou didst redeem by thy great power and bring out of Egypt by thy strong hand. 27   Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin; 28   otherwise the people in ^note the land out of which thou didst lead us will say, “It is because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them and because he hated them, that he has led them out to kill them in the wilderness.” 29   But they are thy people, thy own possession, whom thou didst bring out by thy great strength and by thy outstretched arm.’

Primary charge of Moses to the people

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