Deuteronomy 9

9 ¹ Hear, Israel: today you are crossing over the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, with great fortified cities reaching up to the heavens. ² a great and tall people, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, "Who can stand against the descendants of Anak?" ¹ 1 v2 The Anakim were a legendary race of giants, feared throughout Canaan as undefeatable warriors. ³ Know therefore today that your Father is the one crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and subdue them before you, so you will drive them out and destroy them quickly, as your Father has promised you.

⁴ Do not say in your heart, after your Father has thrust them out before you, "Because of my righteousness our Father has brought me in to possess this land," for it is because of the wickedness of these nations that he is driving them out before you. ⁵ Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations your Father is driving them out before you, and to confirm the word that your Father swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ⁶ Know therefore that it is not because of your righteousness that your Father is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.

A People Who Tested Their Father

⁷ Remember, and do not forget, how you provoked your Father to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against your Father.

⁸ Even at Horeb you provoked your Father to wrath, and your Father was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. ² 2 v8 Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai, the mountain where our Father gave the covenant. ⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that your Father made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water. ¹⁰ And your Father gave me the two tablets of stone written by his finger, and on them were all the words that he had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ At the end of forty days and forty nights, your Father gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

¹² Then your Father said to me, "Get up and go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly from the way I commanded them; they have made for themselves a cast idol."

¹³ Furthermore, your Father said to me, "I have seen this people — they are a stubborn people. ¹⁴ Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they."

¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And when I looked, I saw that you had sinned against your Father. You had made for yourselves a cast calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way your Father had commanded you. ¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tablets, threw them from my hands, and broke them before your eyes.

¹⁸ Then I fell down before your Father, as before, forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in your Father's eyes and provoking him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that your Father bore against you, ready to destroy you. But your Father listened to me that time also.

²⁰ And your Father was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, so I prayed for Aaron also at that time. ²¹ Then I took your sin, the calf you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that ran down from the mountain.

²² At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked your Father to wrath. ³ 3 v22 Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah were wilderness campsites where Israel repeatedly rebelled against God. ²³ And when your Father sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, "Go up and possess the land I have given you," you rebelled against the command of your Father and did not believe him or obey his voice.

²⁴ You have been rebellious against your Father from the day I knew you. ²⁵ So I fell down before your Father the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate, because your Father had said he would destroy you.

²⁶ And I prayed to your Father, "O my Sovereign Father, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ⁴ 4 v26 Moses falls before our Father and pleads for the people he could not save by himself — a shadow of the greater Mediator, Jesus, who would stand between our Father and his children to plead for them. ²⁷ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not hold against them the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness, or their sin, ²⁸ lest the people of the land you brought us from say, 'Because our Father was not able to bring them into the land he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.' ²⁹ For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm."