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📚Then we turned and set out on our journey into the desert on the way toward the Red Sea 📖, as the LORD spoke to me; and we went around Mount Seir many days.2 And the LORD spoke to me, saying, 3 📚“You have gone around this mountain long enough. Turn northward. 4 📚And command the people, saying, ‘You are going to pass through the territory of your brothers the children of Esau who live in Seir. And they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch out for yourselves. 5 📚Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not as much as a foot’s breadth, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 📚You are to buy meat from them for money, for you to eat; and also you are to buy water from them for money, for you to drink.
7 📚“For the LORD your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He knows your walking through this great desert. The LORD your God has been with you for these forty years. You have lacked nothing”.
2:7 Though they were a rebellious, unbelieving people God took care of them so perfectly that they lacked nothing (compare 2 Tim 2:13; 1 Cor 1:9).⚜
8 📚And when we passed beyond our brothers the children of Esau, who lived in Seir, by way of the plain from Elath and from Ezion Geber, we turned and passed along by the way of the wilderness of Moab.
9 📚And the LORD said to me, “Do not trouble the Moabites, or provoke them to battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar as a possession to the children of Lot”.
10 📚(The Emim 📖 lived there in times past, a great and numerous people and as tall as the Anakim, 11 📚and they were also regarded as Rephaim, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim. 12 📚The Horim also lived in Seir previously, but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and lived in their place, just as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the LORD gave to them.)
13 📚“Now rise up”, the LORD said, “and go over the brook Zered”. And we went over the brook Zered.
14 📚And it took us thirty-eight years to come from Kadesh-Barnea, to the time we crossed the brook Zered, until all that generation of the men of war had perished from the camp, just as the LORD swore to them. 15 📚For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from the camp until they had perished.
16 So it came about, when death had finished carrying off all the men of war from among the people,
2:16 God fulfilled to the letter His word against the rebels. So now it was time to start moving again toward the promised land.⚜
17 that the LORD spoke to me, saying, 18 📚“Today you are to pass by Ar, the territory of Moab. 19 📚And when you come opposite the children of Ammon, do not trouble them or provoke them; for I will not give you any possession from the land of the children of Ammon, because I have given it as a possession to the children of Lot. 20 📚(That also was regarded as a land of giants. In ancient times giants lived there, and the Ammonites call them Zamzummim. 21 📚They were a great and numerous people, and as tall as the Anakim. But the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and lived in their place; 22 📚just as he did for the children of Esau, who lived in Seir, when he destroyed the Horim from before them. And they succeeded them, and lived in their place even to this day. 23 📚And the Avim who lived in Hazerim as far as Azzah, the Caphtorim, who came forth from Caphtor 📖, destroyed them and lived in their place.)
24 📚“Rise up, set out on your journey, and cross the river Arnon. See, I have given Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land into your hand. Begin to possess it, and engage him in battle. 25 📚This day I will begin to put the dread of you and the fear 📖 of you on the nations that are under the whole heaven who hear reports about you, and they will tremble, and be in anguish because of you”.
Israel Conquers Sihon
26 📚And I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, 27 📚“Let me pass through your land. I will go by the highway. I will not turn to the right hand nor to the left. 28 📚You may sell me meat for money, so that I may eat, and give me water for money, so that I may drink, as I pass through on foot, 29 📚just as the children of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar, did for me, until I cross the Jordan into the land which the LORD our God gives us”. 30 📚But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through his land. For the LORD your God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, so that he might deliver him into your hands, as it is this day.
31 📚And the LORD said to me, “See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to possess his land so that you can inherit it”.
32 📚Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. 33 📚And the LORD our God handed him over to us, and we defeated him and his sons and all his people. 34 📚And at that time we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones of each city. We left not one remaining.
2:34 A people so wicked in God’s sight that they deserved, and received, complete destruction. Notes at Gen 6:7; Lev 18:24-25.⚜
35 📚Only the cattle we took as prey for ourselves, and the plunder from the cities which we took. 36 📚From Aroer, which is on the bank of the Arnon river, and from the city that is by the river, as far as Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us. The LORD our God handed over everything to us. 37 📚You did not go to the land of the children of Ammon or to any place along the river Jabbok, or to the towns in the hill country, only going where the LORD our God commanded us.