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These are the wordswhichMosesspoke to allIsraelacross the Jordan in the wilderness, in the ArabahoppositeSuph, betweenParan and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab.
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In the fortiethyear, on the first day of the eleventh*month, Mosesspoke to the children of Israel, according to all that the LORD had commanded him to give to them,
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'Turn and set your journey, and go to the hillcountry of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hillcountry and in the lowland and in the Negev and by the seacoast*, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the greatriver, the riverEuphrates.
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'See, I have placed the landbefore you; go in and possess the landwhich the LORDswore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to them and their descendantsafter them.'
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"So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experiencedmen, and appointed them headsover you, leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.
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"Then I charged your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the cases between your fellowcountrymen, and judgerighteouslybetween a man and his fellowcountryman, or the alien who is with him.
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'You shall not showpartiality* in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fearman, for the judgment is God's. The case that is toohard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.'
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"Then we set out from Horeb, and went through all that great and terriblewildernesswhich you saw on the way to the hillcountry of the Amorites, just as the LORD our God had commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
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'See, the LORD your God has placed the landbefore you; go up, takepossession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.'
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"Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us sendmenbefore us, that they may search out the land for us, and bringback to us word of the way by which we should go up and the citieswhich we shall enter.'
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"Then they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought us back a report and said, 'It is a goodlandwhich the LORD our God is about to give us.'
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and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORDhates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.
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'Where can we go up? Our brethren have made our heartsmelt, saying, "The people are bigger and tallerthan we; the cities are large and fortified to heaven. And besides, we saw the sons of the Anakimthere."'
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and in the wildernesswhere you sawhow the LORD your Godcarried you, just as a mancarries his son, in all the waywhich you have walkeduntil you came to thisplace.'
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who goesbefore you on your way, to seek out a place for you to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go.
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exceptCaleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has setfoot, because* he has followed the LORDfully.'
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'Moreover, your littleoneswho you said would become a prey, and your sons, who this dayhavenoknowledge of good or evil, shall enterthere, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it.
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"Then you said to me, 'We have sinned against the LORD; we will indeed go up and fight, just* as the LORD our Godcommanded us.' And everyman of you girded on his weapons of war, and regarded it as easy to go up into the hillcountry.
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"So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelledagainst the command of the LORD, and actedpresumptuously and went up into the hillcountry.