Assurance of Victory
Hear, Israel: you are crossing the Jordan today, to go in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than you — cities great and fortified to the heavens,
a people great and tall, sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?”
And know today that the LORD your God — he is the one crossing before you, a consuming fire. He will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you; and you shall dispossess them and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has spoken to you.
Do not say in your heart, when the LORD your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, “Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land” — for because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD is dispossessing them from before you.
Not because of your righteousness, or because of the uprightness of your heart, are you going in to possess their land — but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is dispossessing them from before you, and in order to establish the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
And know that not because of your righteousness is the LORD your God giving you this good land to possess it — for you are a stiff-necked people.
The Golden Calf
Remember — do not forget — how you provoked the LORD your God 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 with the LORD.
And at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath; and the LORD was angry enough with you to destroy you.
When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD cut with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Bread I did not eat, and water I did not drink.
And the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words that the LORD had spoken with you at the mountain, from the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
And it was, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
And the LORD said to me, “Rise, 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 that I commanded them; they have made themselves a cast image.”
And the LORD said to me, saying, “I have seen this people — and look, it is a stiff-necked people.
Let me alone, and I will destroy them and wipe out their name from under the heavens; and I will make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than they.”
And I turned and came down from the mountain, while the mountain was burning with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were on my two hands.
And I looked — and look, you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a cast calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you.
And I seized the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands, and shattered them before your eyes.
And I fell down before the LORD as at the first, forty days and forty nights. Bread I did not eat, and water I did not drink — because of all your sin that you had sinned, in doing the evil in the eyes of the LORD, to provoke him.
For I was in dread of the anger and the wrath with which the LORD was furious against you, to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.
And with Aaron the LORD was very angry, enough to destroy him; and I prayed for Aaron also at that time.
And your sin, which you had made — the calf — I took and burned with fire, and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the stream that comes down from the mountain.
And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you kept provoking the LORD to wrath.
And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the mouth of the LORD your God, and did not believe him, and did not listen to his voice.
You have been rebellious with the LORD from the day I knew you.
So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and the forty nights that I fell down, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
And I prayed to the LORD and said, “My Lord GOD, do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you have ransomed by your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.
Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not turn to the stubbornness of this people, or to its wickedness, or to its sin —
lest the land from which you brought us out say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he had spoken of to them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’
For they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”