CHAPTER 9
1 Hear thou, Israel; thou shalt pass over Jordan today, that thou wield the most nations, and stronger than thou; great cities, and walled till to heaven;
2 a great people, and high; the sons of Anakim, which thyself hast seen, and heard, which no man may against-stand in the contrary part.
3 Therefore thou shalt know today that thy Lord God himself shall pass over before thee; he is a fire devour-ing and wasting, that shall all-break them, and he shall do them away, and destroy them before thy face swiftly, as he spake to thee.
4 Say thou not in thine heart, when thy Lord God hath done them away in thy sight, For my rightwiseness the Lord hath brought me in hither, that I should wield the land; since these nations be done away for their wicked-nesses.
5 For not for thy rightwiseness, and for the equity of thine heart thou shalt enter, that thou wield their land; but for they did wickedly, they were done away, when thou enteredest, and that the Lord should [ful] fill his word which he promised under an oath to thy fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 Therefore know thou that not for thy rightwisenesses thy Lord God hath given to thee this best land into possession, since thou art a people of most hard noll.
7 Have thou mind, and forget not, how in the wilderness thou stirredest thy Lord God to great wrath; from that day in which thou wentest out of Egypt till to this place, thou hast striven ever[more] against the Lord.
8 For why also in Horeb, thou stirredest him, and he was wroth, and would have done thee away,
9 and when I went up into the hill, that I should take two tables of stone, the tables of covenant which the Lord made with you, and I abode in the hill forty days and forty nights, and I ate not bread, and I drank not water.
10 And the Lord gave to me two tables of stone, ever either written with God’s finger, and containing all the words which he spake to you in the hill, from the midst of the fire, when the company of people was gathered together.
11 And when forty days and so many nights had passed, the Lord gave to me two tables of stone, tables of the bond of peace;
12 and he said to me, Rise thou, and go down from hence soon, for thy people, that thou hast led out of Egypt, have forsaken swiftly the way that thou showedest to them, and they have made to them[selves] a molten calf.
13 And again the Lord said to me, I see that this people is of an hard noll;
14 suffer thou me, that I all-break him, and do away his name from under heaven; and I shall ordain thee on a folk which is greater and stronger than this folk.
15 And when I came down from the hill burning, and I held with either hand the two tables of the bond of peace,
16 and I saw, that ye had sinned to your Lord God, and had made to you a molten calf, and that ye had forsaken swiftly the way of God that he had showed to you,
17 then I threw down the tables from mine hands, and I brake those tables in your sight.
18 And I felled down before the Lord as before, in forty days and forty nights, and I ate not bread, and drank not water, for all your sins which ye did against the Lord, and stirred him to great wrath;
19 for I dreaded the indignation and the wrath of the Lord, by which he was stirred against you, and would do you away. And the Lord heard me also in this time praying for you.
20 Also the Lord was wroth greatly against Aaron, and would have all-broken him, and I prayed in like manner for him.
21 Forsooth I took your sin which ye made, that is, the calf, and burnt it in fire, and I all-brake it into gobbets, and I made it utterly into dust, and I cast it forth into the strand [or stream], that came down from the hill.
22 Also in the burning, and in the temptation at the waters of Against-saying, and in the Sepulchres of Covet-ousness, ye stirred the Lord;
23 and when I sent you from Kadesh-barnea, and said, Go ye up, and wield ye the land which I have given to you, and ye despised the com-mandment of your Lord God, and ye believed not to him, neither ye would hear his voice;
24 but ever[more] ye were rebel, from the day in which I began to know you.
25 And I lay before the Lord forty days and forty nights, in which I besought him meekly, that he should not do away you, as he menaced [or threatened].
26 And I prayed him, and said, Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thine heritage, which thou again-boughtest in thy greatness, which thou leddest out of Egypt in strong hand.
27 Have thou mind of thy servants, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; behold thou not the hardness of this people, and the wickedness, and the sin thereof,
28 lest peradventure the dwellers of the land, out of which thou leddest us, say, The Lord might not bring them into the land which he promised to them, and he hated them; therefore he led them out that he should slay them in wilderness;
29 and Lord, they be thy people, and thine heritage, which thou leddest out in thy great strength, and in thine arm stretched forth.