Deuteronomy 9

1. “Hear, O Israel! You are to pass over Jordan today to go in to expel nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fenced up to heaven,

2. A people great and tall, the sons of the giants, whom you know and have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak!’

3. Therefore, understand this day that the LORD your God is He Who goes over before you. Like a consuming fire, He shall destroy them, and He shall bring them down before your face. So you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly as the LORD has said to you.

4. Do not speak in your heart after the LORD your God has cast them out from before you, saying, ‘For my righteousness, the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’; but for the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God drives them out from before you.

5. Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God drives them out from before you, so that He may perform the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

6. Therefore, understand that the LORD your God does not give you this good land, to possess it for your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

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

8. Also in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath so that the LORD was angry with you that He would have destroyed you.

9. When I had gone up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.

10. And the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was written according to all the words which the LORD spoke with you in the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

11. And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

12. And the LORD said to me, ‘Arise! Get down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten image.’

13. Furthermore the LORD spoke to me saying, ‘I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people.

14. Let Me alone so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens. 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 burned with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

16. And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf! You had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.

17. And I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands and broke them before your eyes.

18. And again I prostrated myself before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all your sins which you sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD to provoke Him to anger.

19. For I was afraid of the anger and fury with which the LORD was angry against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened to me at that time also.

20. And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

21. And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and stamped it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. And I threw the dust of it into the brook that descended out of the mountain.

22. And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at the Graves of Lust, you provoked the LORD to anger.

23. And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’then you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and you did not believe Him, nor hearkened to His voice.

24. You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.

25. So again I lay prostrate before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I had lay prostrate at the first because the LORD said He would destroy you.

26. I prayed therefore to the LORD and said, ‘O, Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance which You have redeemed through Your greatness, which You have brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

27. Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Do not look to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin,

28. Lest the people of the land from where You brought us out say, “Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.”

29. Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance which You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.’ ”