Deuteronomy 9 · Parashat Eikev

Hear, O Yisra᾽el: Thou art to pass over the Yarden this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven,

a people great and tall, the children of the ῾Anaqim, whom thou knowst, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of ῾Anaq!

Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he who goes over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to thee.

Speak not thou in thy heart, after the Lord thy God has cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land: and for the wickedness of these nations the Lord does drive them out from before thee.

Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but on account of the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God does drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord swore to thy fathers, Avraham, Yiżĥaq, and Ya῾aqov.

Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God gives thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

Remember, and forget not, how thou didst provoke the Lord thy God to anger in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Miżrayim, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

Also in Ḥorev you provoked the Lord to anger, so that the Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you.

When I was gone up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode in the mountain forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:

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 on the day of the assembly.

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

And the Lord said to me, Arise, get thee down quickly from here; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Miżrayim have become corrupt; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.

And the Lord spoke to me saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

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.

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

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

And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which you sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, with which the Lord was angry against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened to me at that time also.

And the Lord was very angry with Aharon to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aharon also at the same time.

And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust: and I cast the dust of it into the stream that descended out of the mountain.

And at Tav῾era, and at Massa, and at Qivrot-hatta᾽ava, you provoked the Lord to anger.

Likewise when the Lord sent you from Qadesh-barne῾a, 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 believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

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

Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the Lord had said he would destroy you.

I prayed therefore to the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thy inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought out of Miżrayim with a mighty hand.

Remember thy servants, Avraham, Yiżĥaq, and Ya῾aqov; look not to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

lest the land from which thou didst bring 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 slay them in the wilderness.

Yet they are thy people and thy inheritance, which thou didst bring out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched-out arm.