¹Then we turned and moved to the desert by the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord had said to me, and we went round Mount Seir for many days. ²And the Lord spoke to me and said, ³‘You have gone round this mountain long enough. Take a turn northwards. ⁴And command the people and say, «You will be crossing the territory of your brothers – the sons of Esau who live in Seir – and they will be afraid of you, so you will be very much on your guard. ⁵Do not engage them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even the print of a footstep, for I have given Mount Seir as a possession to Esau. ⁶You may buy food for money from them and eat it, and you may also procure water for money from them and drink it. ⁷For the Lord your God has blessed you in every work of your hands. He knows your walk in this great desert. For forty years now the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.» ’ ⁸And we crossed through the territory of our brothers – the sons of Esau – who live in Seir, by the way of the arid tract from Elath and Ezion-Geber, and we turned and crossed by the way of the Desert of Moab. ⁹Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not cause distress to Moab and do not engage them in war, for I will not give you any of his land as a possession, for I have given Ar to the sons of Lot as a possession. ¹⁰The Emites inhabited it in times past. They were as great and numerous and powerful as the Anakites. ¹¹They too are considered Rephaim, like the Anakites, and the Moabites call them Emites. ¹²And the Horites dwelt in Seir in times past, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them in their advance, and they dwelt there instead of them, just as Israel did to the land of its possession which the Lord gave them. ¹³Now get up and get crossing the Zered Brook.’ And we duly crossed the Zered Brook. ¹⁴And the time in which we went from Kadesh-Barnea until we had crossed the Zered Brook was thirty-eight years – until the whole generation of the men of war had come to an end and was not in the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. ¹⁵Moreover the hand of the Lord was against them, to drive them out of the midst of the camp until they had come to an end. ¹⁶And it came to pass when all the men of war had come to an end, by dying in the midst of the people, ¹⁷that the Lord spoke to me and said, ¹⁸‘You are crossing the territory of Moab today, that is, Ar, ¹⁹and you will go near, but opposite, the sons of Ammon. Do not cause them distress and do not engage them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession.’ ²⁰This is also considered the land of the Rephaim. The Rephaim lived there in times past, and the Ammonites call them Zamzummites ²¹– a people as great and numerous and powerful as the Anakites – but the Lord destroyed them at their advance, and they dispossessed them, and they dwelt there instead of them, ²²just as he did for the sons of Esau who dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites at their advance and dispossessed them, and they have been living there instead of them up to this day. ²³And as for the Avites who dwelt in Hazerim and as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites who came from Caphtor destroyed them and dwelt there instead of them. ²⁴‘Get up and move on and cross the Arnon Brook. Look, I have put Sihon king of Heshbon, the Amorite, in your power, so begin to possess his land and engage him in battle. ²⁵This day I will begin to put dread of you and fear of you among the nations under the whole of heaven when they hear your reputation and are awestruck, and they reel in front of you.’ ²⁶And I sent messengers from the Desert of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with peaceful words, saying, ²⁷‘Let me cross your land. I will only go by the main roads; I will not deviate to the right or to the left. ²⁸Sell me food for money so that I can eat, and give me water for money so that I can drink, but let me cross on foot, ²⁹as the sons of Esau did for me, who live in Seir, and the Moabites who live in Ar, until I have crossed the Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.’ ³⁰But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing to let us pass through his land, for the Lord your God had hardened his spirit, and he had made his heart obstinate, so that he could put him in your power, as it is to this day. ³¹And the Lord said to me, ‘Look, I have started to put Sihon and his land in front of you. Make a start and possess it – to possess his land.’ ³²Then Sihon came out to confront us – he and all his people – to battle at Jahaz. ³³And the Lord our God put him in front of us, and we defeated him and his son and all his people. ³⁴And we captured all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men and the women and the children in every city. We did not leave a single survivor, ³⁵except that we took cattle as spoil for ourselves, and the booty of the cities which we had captured, ³⁶from Aroer which is on the bank of the Arnon Brook, and the city which is at the brook, and as far as Gilead. There was no town that was too strong for us – the Lord our God placed everything in front of us, ³⁷except that you did not approach the sons of Ammon, nor any place on the Jabbok Brook, nor the cities of the mountain range, nor anything that the Lord our God forbade us.