cormacburke.me.ke

Chapter 9
1 Hear, O Israel: you shall go over the Jordan this day; to possess nations very great, and stronger than yourself, cities great, and walled up to the sky,
2 A People great and tall, the sons of the Enacims, whom you have seen, and heard of, against whom no man is able to stand.
3 You shall know therefore this day that the Lord your God himself will pass over before you, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before your face quickly, as he has spoken to you.
4 Say not in your heart, when the Lord your God shall have destroyed them in your sight: For my justice has the Lord brought me in to possess this land, whereas these nations are destroyed for their wickedness.
5 For it is not for your justices, and the uprightness of your heart that you shall go in to possess their lands: but because they have done wickedly, they are destroyed at your coming in: and that the Lord might accomplish his word, which he promised by oath to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 Know therefore that the Lord your God gives you not this excellent land in possession for your justices, for you are a very stiffnecked people.
7 Remember, and forget not how then provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you came out of Egypt unto this place, you have always strove against the Lord.
8 For in Horeb also you did provoke him, and he was angry, and would have destroyed you,
9 When I went up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you: and I continued in the mount forty days and nights, neither eating bread, nor drinking water.
10 And the Lord gave me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and containing all the words that he spoke to you in the mount from the midst of the Are, when the people were assembled together.
11 And when forty days were passed, and as many nights, the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant,
12 And said to me: Arise, and go down from hence quickly: for your people, which you have brought out of Egypt, have quickly forsaken the way that you have shewn them, and have made to themselves a molten idol.
13 And again the Lord said to me: I see that this people is stiffnecked:
14 Let me alone that I may destroy them, and abolish their name from under heaven, and set you over a nation, that is greater and stronger than this.
15 And when I came down from the burning mount, and held the two tables of the covenant with both hands,
16 And saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made to yourselves a molten calf, and had quickly forsaken his way, which he had shewn you:
17 I cast the tables out of my hands, and broke them in your sight.
18 And I fell down before the Lord se before, forty days and nights neither eating bread, nor drinking water, for all your sins, which you had committed against the Lord, and had provoked him to wrath:
19 For I feared his indignation and anger, wherewith being moved against you, he would have destroyed you. And the Lord heard me this time also.
20 And he was exceeding angry against Aaron also, and would have destroyed him, and I prayed in like manner for him.
21 And your sin that you had committed, that is, the calf, I took, and burned it with fire, and breaking it into pieces, until it was as small as dust, I threw it into the torrent, which comes down from the mountain.
22 At the burning also, and at the place of temptation, and at the graves of lust you provoked the Lord:
23 And when he sent you from Cadesbarne, saying: Go up, and possess the land that I have given you, and you slighted the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him, neither would you hearken to his voice:
24 But were always rebellious from the day that I began to know you.
25 And I lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights, in which I humbly besought him, that he would not destroy you as he had threatened:
26 And praying, I said: 0 Lord God, destroy not your people, and your inheritance, which you have redeemed in your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.
27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: look not on the stubbornness of this people, nor on their wickedness and sin:
28 Lest perhaps the inhabitants of the land, out of which you have brought us, say: The Lord could not bring them into the land that he promised them, and he hated them: therefore he brought them out, that he might kill them in the wilderness,
29 Who are your people and your inheritance, whom you have brought out by your great strength, and in your stretched out arm.