The Israelis defeated the Canaan people
21
1 The king of the city of Arad lived in the area where the Canaan people-group lived, in the desert in the southern part of the land. He heard a report that the Israelis were approaching on the road to the village of Atharim. So his army attacked us Israelis and captured some of our men. 2 Then we declared this solemnly: “Yahweh, if you will help us to defeat these people, we will completely destroy all their towns.” 3 Yahweh heard what we requested, and he enabled us to defeat the army of the Canaan people-group. Our soldiers killed all the people and destroyed their towns. Ever since that time, that place has been called Hormah, which means 'destruction'.The bronze snake
4 Then we left Mount Hor and traveled on the road towards the Red Sea, in order to go around the land of Edom. But the people became impatient along the way, 5 and they began to complain against God and against me. They said, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in this desert? There is nothing to eat here, and nothing to drink. And we detest this lousy manna food!”
6 So Yahweh sent poisonous snakes among them. Many of the people were bitten by the snakes and died. 7 Then the people came to me and cried out, saying, “We now know that we have sinned against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh, asking that he will take away the snakes!” So I prayed for the people.
8 Then Yahweh told me, “Make a model of a poisonous snake and attach it to the top of a pole. If those who are bitten by the snakes look at that model, they will recover.” 9 So I made a snake from bronze and attached it to the top of a pole. Then, when those who had been bitten by a snake looked at the bronze snake, they recovered!
The Israelis traveled to Moab
10 Then we traveled to Oboth and set up our tents there. 11 Then we left there and went to Iye-Abarim, in the desert on the eastern border of Moab. 12 From there we traveled to the valley where the Zered riverbed is, and camped there. 13 Then we traveled to the north side of the Arnon River. That area is in the desert next to the land where the Amor people-group lived. The Arnon River is the boundary between Moab and where the Amor people-group lived. 14 That is why in the book called 'The Book of the Wars of Yahweh' it tells about
“The town of Waheb in the Suphah area, and the ravines there;
and the Arnon River
15 and the ravines there,
which extend as far as the village of Ar on the border of Moab.”
16 From there, we traveled to Beer. There was a well there, where Yahweh previously had said to me, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.” 17 There the Israelis sang this song:
“O well, give us water!
Sing about this well!
18 Sing about this well
which our leaders dug;
they dug out the dirt with their royal scepters and their walking-sticks.”
Then we left that desert and went through the villages of Mattanah, 19 Nahaliel, and Bamoth. 20 Then we went to the valley in Moab where Mount Pisgah rises above the desert.
The defeat of kings Sihon and Og
21 Then we sent messengers to Sihon, the king of the Amor people-group. This was the message that we gave him:
22 “Allow us to travel through your country. We will stay on the king's highway, the main road that goes from the south to the north, until we have finished traveling through your land. We will not walk through any field or vineyard, or drink water from your wells.”
23 But King Sihon refused. He would not allow us to walk through his land. Instead, he sent his whole army to attack us Israelis in the desert. They attacked us at the village of Jahaz. 24 But we defeated them and occupied their land, from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north. We stopped at the border of the land where the Ammon people-group lived, because the Ammon army was defending the border strongly. 25 So we occupied all the cities and towns where the Amor people-group lived, and some of us began to live in them. We occupied the city of Heshbon and the nearby villages. 26 Heshbon was the capital of the country. It was the city where King Sihon ruled. His army had previously defeated the army of the king of Moab, and then his people had begun to live in all of the land of Moab as far as the Arnon River in the south.
27 For that reason one of the poets wrote long ago,
“Come to Heshbon, the city where King Sihon ruled.
We want the city to be rebuilt.
28 A fire blazed from the city of Heshbon;
it burned down the city of Ar in Moab,
it destroyed everything on the hills along the Arnon River.
29 You people of Moab, terrible things have happened to you!
You people who worship your god Chemosh have been wiped out!
The men who worshiped Chemosh have run away and are now refugees,
and the women who worshiped him have been captured by the army of Sihon, the king of the Amor people-group.
30 But we have defeated Sihon and those descendants of Amor\add ,
all the way from Heshbon in the north to the city of Dibon in the south.
We have completely obliterated them as far as the towns of Nophah and Medeba.”
31 So we began to live in the land where the Amor people-group lived.
32 After I sent some men to explore the area near the city of Jazer, some Israeli people began to live in all the towns in that region and expelled the Amor people-group who lived there. 33 Then they turned north toward the Bashan region, but King Og of Bashan and all his army attacked them at the town of Edrei.
34 Yahweh said to me, “Do not be afraid of Og, because I am going to enable your men to defeat him and his army, and to take possession of all his land. You will do to him what you did to Sihon, the king of the Amor people-group, who ruled in Heshbon.”
35 And that is what happened. We Israelis defeated Og's army, and killed King Og and his sons and all his people. Not a person survived! And then we began to live in their land.