His Will Be Done

Israel Provoked God

9 “Hear, Israel! You are crossing the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities that are great and fortified to heaven, ² a people who are great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand against the sons of Anak?’ ³ So be aware today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over ahead of you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and eliminate them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you.

⁴ “Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them away from you, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to take possession of this land.’ Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lordis dispossessing them before you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and in order to confirm the oath which the Lordswore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁶ “Know, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.⁷ Remember, do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness; from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to anger, and the Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you. ⁹ When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I remained on the mountain for forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰ The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ It came about at the end of forty days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, because your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have behaved corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them; they have made a cast metal image for themselves.’ ¹³ The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, it is a stubborn people. ¹⁴ Leave Me alone, that I may destroy them and wipe out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’

¹⁵ “So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God. You had made for yourselves a cast metal image of a calf; you had quickly turned aside from the way that the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my two hands, and smashed them to pieces before your eyes! ¹⁸ Then I fell down before the Lord like the first time, for forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed by doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and the rage with which the Lord was angry with you so as to destroy you; but the Lord listened to me that time as well. ²⁰ The Lord was also angry enough with Aaron to destroy him; so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. ²¹ And I took your sinful thing which you had made, the calf, and burned it in the fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the stream that came down from the mountain.

²² “Then at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah you kept provoking the Lord to anger. ²³ And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land which I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God; you neither trusted Him nor listened to His voice. ²⁴ You have been rebellious toward the Lord since the day I knew you.

²⁵ “So I fell down before the Lord for the forty days and nights, which I did because the Lord said He would destroy you. ²⁶ And I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Lord God, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand! ²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not turn Your attention to the stubbornness of this people, or to their wickedness, or their sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, the people of the land from which You brought us will say, “Since the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He had promised them, and since He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness!” ²⁹ Yet they are Your people, and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.’

The Tablets Rewritten

10 “At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first two, and come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood for yourself. ² Then I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you smashed to pieces, and you shall put them in the ark.’ ³ So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the first two, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ Then He wrote on the tablets, like the first writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. ⁵ Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and I put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and they are there, just as the Lord commanded me.”

⁶ (Now the sons of Israel set out from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died and there he was buried, and his son Eleazar served as priest in his place. ⁷ From there they set out to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water. ⁸ At that time the Lord singled out the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to serve Him and to bless in His name, until this day. ⁹ Therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God spoke to him.)

¹⁰ “I, moreover, stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights like the first time, and the Lord listened to me that time also; the Lord was not willing to destroy you. ¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, proceed on your journey ahead of the people, so that they may go in and take possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation