The Command to Leave Horeb

¹These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in athe Arabah opposite bSuph, between cParan and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ²It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to dKadesh-barnea. ³eIn the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them, ⁴after fhe had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and gOg the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and in hEdrei. ⁵Beyond the Jordan, iin the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, ⁶“The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, j‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷Turn and take your journey, and go to kthe hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in athe Arabah, lin the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and lby the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. ⁸See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, mto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.’

Leaders Appointed

⁹“At that time nI said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by myself. ¹⁰The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, oyou are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. ¹¹pMay the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, qas he has promised you! ¹²rHow can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? ¹³sChoose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.’ ¹⁴And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.’ ¹⁵So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, tand set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes. ¹⁶And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and ujudge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. ¹⁷vYou shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for wthe judgment is God's. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall xbring to me, and I will hear it.’ ¹⁸And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.

Israel's Refusal to Enter the Land

¹⁹“Then we set out from Horeb and ywent through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And zwe came to Kadesh-barnea. ²⁰And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. ²¹See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. aDo not fear or be dismayed.’ ²²Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’ ²³The thing seemed good to me, and bI took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴And cthey turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out. ²⁵And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.’

²⁶“Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. ²⁷And dyou murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord ehated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, fto give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. ²⁸Where are we going up? gOur brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, h“The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen ithe sons of the Anakim there.”’ ²⁹Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. ³⁰The Lord your God who goes before you jwill himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, ³¹and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God kcarried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ ³²Yet in spite of this word lyou did not believe the Lord your God, ³³mwho went before you in the way nto seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.

The Penalty for Israel's Rebellion

³⁴“And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, ³⁵o‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, ³⁶pexcept Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’ ³⁷Even with me qthe Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. ³⁸rJoshua the son of Nun, rwho stands before you, he shall enter. sEncourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. ³⁹And as for tyour little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today uhave no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. ⁴⁰But as for you, vturn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’

⁴¹“Then you answered me, w‘We have sinned against the Lord. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. ⁴²And the Lord said to me, x‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, yfor I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’ ⁴³So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the Lord and zpresumptuously went up into the hill country. ⁴⁴aThen the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you bas bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as cHormah. ⁴⁵And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. ⁴⁶So dyou remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.

Psalm 81

Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me

To the choirmaster: according to fThe Gittith.1 Of gAsaph.

¹hSing aloud to God our strength;

ishout for joy to the God of Jacob!

²Raise a song; sound jthe tambourine,

kthe sweet lyre with kthe harp.

³Blow the trumpet at lthe new moon,

at the full moon, on our feast day.

⁴For it is a statute for Israel,

a rule2 of the God of Jacob.

⁵He made it ma decree in nJoseph

when he owent out over3 the land of Egypt.

pI hear a language qI had not known:

⁶“I rrelieved your4 shoulder of sthe burden;

your hands were freed from the basket.

⁷In distress you tcalled, and I delivered you;

I uanswered you in the secret place of thunder;

I vtested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

⁸wHear, O my people, while I admonish you!

O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

⁹There shall be no xstrange god among you;

you shall not bow down to a yforeign god.

¹⁰zI am the Lord your God,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

aOpen your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

¹¹“But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel bwould not submit to me.

¹²So I cgave them over to their dstubborn hearts,

to follow their own ecounsels.

¹³fOh, that my people would listen to me,

that Israel would gwalk in my ways!

¹⁴I would soon subdue their enemies

and hturn my hand against their foes.

¹⁵Those who hate the Lord would icringe toward him,

and their fate would last forever.

¹⁶But he would feed you5 with jthe finest of the wheat,

and with khoney from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Psalm 82

Rescue the Weak and Needy

A Psalm of lAsaph.

¹mGod nhas taken his place in the divine council;

in the midst of pthe gods he qholds judgment:

²“How long will you judge unjustly

and rshow partiality to sthe wicked? Selah

³tGive justice to uthe weak and the fatherless;

vmaintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

⁴wRescue the weak and the needy;

xdeliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

⁵yThey have neither knowledge nor understanding,

zthey walk about in darkness;

aall the foundations of the earth are bshaken.

⁶cI said, “You are gods,

sons of the Most High, all of you;

⁷nevertheless, like men dyou shall die,

and fall like any prince.”1

⁸eArise, O God, judge the earth;

for you shall finherit all the nations!

The Siege of Jerusalem

¹Ah, Ariel, Ariel,

the city fwhere David encamped!

Add year to year;

let the feasts run their round.

²Yet I will distress Ariel,

and there shall be moaning and lamentation,

and she shall be to me like an Ariel.1

³gAnd I will encamp against you all around,

and will besiege you hwith towers

and I will raise siegeworks against you.

⁴iAnd you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,

and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;

your voice shall come from the ground like jthe voice of a ghost,

and from the dust your speech shall whisper.

⁵But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like ksmall dust,

and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.

lAnd in an instant, suddenly,

⁶myou will be visited by the Lord of hosts

with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,

with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

⁷And nthe multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,

all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,

shall be olike a dream, a vision of the night.

⁸pAs when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,

and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,

or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,

and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,

so shall the multitude of all the nations be

that fight against Mount Zion.

⁹Astonish yourselves2 and be astonished;

blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk,3 but not with wine;

rstagger,4 but not with strong drink!

¹⁰sFor the Lord has poured out upon you

a spirit of deep sleep,

and has closed your eyes (the prophets),

and covered your heads (the seers).

¹¹And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is tsealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” ¹²And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”

¹³And the Lord said:

“Because uthis people vdraw near with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

¹⁴therefore, behold, wI will again

do wonderful things with this people,

with wonder upon wonder;

and xthe wisdom of their wise men shall perish,

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

¹⁵Ah, yyou who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,

whose deeds are zin the dark,

and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”

¹⁶aYou turn things upside down!

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,

that the thing made should say of its maker,

“He did not make me”;

or the thing formed say of him who formed it,

“He has no understanding”?

¹⁷Is it not yet a very little while

buntil Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,

and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?

¹⁸In that day cthe deaf shall hear

dthe words of a book,

and out of their gloom and darkness

ethe eyes of the blind shall see.

¹⁹fThe meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,

and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰For the ruthless shall come to nothing

and gthe scoffer cease,

and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,

²¹who by a word make a man out to be an offender,

and hlay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,

and with an empty plea iturn aside him who is in the right.

²²Therefore thus says the Lord, jwho redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:

“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,

no more shall his face grow pale.

²³For when he sees his children,

kthe work of my hands, in his midst,

they will sanctify my name;

lthey will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob

and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴And those mwho go astray in spirit will come to understanding,

and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

Greeting

¹aThe elder to the beloved Gaius, bwhom I love in truth.

²Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. ³For cI rejoiced greatly when the brothers1 came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. ⁴I have no greater joy than to hear that dmy children are walking in the truth.

Support and Opposition

⁵Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for ethese brothers, fstrangers as they are, ⁶who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner gworthy of God. ⁷For they have gone out for the sake of hthe name, iaccepting nothing from the Gentiles. ⁸Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

⁹I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. ¹⁰So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

¹¹Beloved, jdo not imitate evil but imitate good. kWhoever does good is from God; lwhoever does evil has not seen God. ¹²Demetrius mhas received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and nyou know that our testimony is true.

Final Greetings

¹³oI had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. ¹⁴I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.

¹⁵Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, peach by name.