Deuteronomy 9

1“Hear, O Israel: You are passing over the Jordan today to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the heavens,

2a people great and tall, sons of Anakim, whom you have known, and [of whom] you have heard: Who stations himself before sons of Anak?

3And you have known today that your God YHWH [is] He who is passing over before you [as] a consuming fire; He destroys them, and He humbles them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and destroyed them quickly, as YHWH has spoken to you.

4You do not speak in your heart (in your God YHWH’s driving them away from before you), saying, In my righteousness YHWH has brought me in to possess this land; but in YHWH dispossessing these nations from your presence, [it is because of] their being wicked.

5[It is] not in your righteousness and in the uprightness of your heart [that] you are going in to possess their land, but in YHWH dispossessing these nations from your presence, [it is because of] their being wicked, and in order to establish the word which YHWH has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob;

6and you have known that [it is] not in your righteousness [that] your God YHWH is giving this good land to you to possess it, for you [are] a people stiff of neck.

7Remember [and] do not forget that [with] which you have made your God YHWH angry in the wilderness; from the day that you have come out of the land of Egypt until your coming to this place, you have been rebellious against YHWH;

8even in Horeb you have made YHWH angry, and YHWH shows Himself angry against you—to destroy you.

9In my going up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone (tablets of the covenant which YHWH has made with you), then I abide on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I have not eaten bread and I have not drunk water;

10and YHWH gives to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them [is] according to all the words which YHWH has spoken with you on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly.

11And it comes to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, YHWH has given the two tablets of stone to me—tablets of the covenant.

12Then YHWH says to me, Rise, go down, hurry from here, for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have done corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I have commanded them—they have made a molten thing for themselves!

13And YHWH speaks to me, saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it [is] a people stiff of neck.

14Desist from Me, and I destroy them, and blot out their name from under the heavens, and I make you become a nation more mighty and numerous than it.

15And I turn and come down from the mountain, and the mountain is burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant [are] on my two hands,

16and I see, and behold, you have sinned against your God YHWH; you have made a molten calf for yourselves; you have quickly turned aside from the way which YHWH has commanded you.

17And I lay hold on the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and break them before your eyes,

18and I throw myself before YHWH, as at first, [for] forty days and forty nights; I have not eaten bread and I have not drunk water, because of all your sins which you have sinned by doing evil in the eyes of YHWH, to make Him angry.

19For I have been afraid because of the anger and the fury with which YHWH has been angry against you, to destroy you; and YHWH also listens to me at this time.

20And YHWH has showed Himself very angry with Aaron, to destroy him, and I also pray for Aaron at that time.

21And I have taken your sin, the calf which you have made, and I burn it with fire, and beat it, grinding well until it [is] small as dust, and I cast its dust into the brook which is going down out of the mountain.

22And in Taberah, and in Massah, and in Kibroth-Hattaavah, you have been making YHWH angry;

23also in YHWH’s sending you from Kadesh-Barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given to you; then you provoke the mouth of your God YHWH, and have not given credence to Him, nor listened to His voice.

24You have been rebellious against YHWH from the day of my knowing you.

25And I throw myself before YHWH—the forty days and the forty nights when I had thrown myself—because YHWH has commanded to destroy you;

26and I pray to YHWH, and say, Lord YHWH, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance whom You have ransomed in Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a strong hand;

27be mindful of Your servants, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; do not turn to the stiffness of this people, and to its wickedness, and to its sin,

28lest the land from which You have brought us out says, Because of YHWH’s want of ability to bring them into the land of which He has spoken to them, and because of His hating them, He brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.

29And they [are] Your people and Your inheritance, whom You have brought out by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm!”