The Message Bible MSG
New Living Translation NLT
1 Attention, Israel!
1
“Listen, O Israel! Today you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land belonging to nations much greater and more powerful than you. They live in cities with walls that reach to the sky!
2 gigantic people, descendants of the Anakites - you've heard all about them; you've heard the saying, "No one can stand up to an Anakite."
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The people are strong and tall—descendants of the famous Anakite giants. You’ve heard the saying, ‘Who can stand up to the Anakites?’
3 Today know this: God, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you - he's a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power. You will dispossess them and very quickly wipe them out, just as God promised you would.
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But recognize today that the LORD your God is the one who will cross over ahead of you like a devouring fire to destroy them. He will subdue them so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out, just as the LORD has promised.
4 But when God pushes them out ahead of you, don't start thinking to yourselves, "It's because of all the good I've done that God has brought me in here to dispossess these nations." Actually it's because of all the evil these nations have done.
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“After the LORD your God has done this for you, don’t say in your hearts, ‘The LORD has given us this land because we are such good people!’ No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way.
5 No, it's nothing good that you've done, no record for decency that you've built up, that got you here; it's because of the vile wickedness of these nations that God, your God, is dispossessing them before you so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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It is not because you are so good or have such integrity that you are about to occupy their land. The LORD your God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness, and to fulfill the oath he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 Know this and don't ever forget it: It's not because of any good that you've done that God is giving you this good land to own. Anything but! You're stubborn as mules.
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You must recognize that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land because you are good, for you are not—you are a stubborn people.
7 Keep in mind and don't ever forget how angry you made God, your God, in the wilderness. You've kicked and screamed against God from the day you left Egypt until you got to this place, rebels all the way.
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“Remember and never forget how angry you made the LORD your God out in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until now, you have been constantly rebelling against him.
8 You made God angry at Horeb, made him so angry that he wanted to destroy you.
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Even at Mount Sinai you made the LORD so angry he was ready to destroy you.
9 When I climbed the mountain to receive the slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant that God made with you, I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights: I ate no food; I drank no water.
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This happened when I was on the mountain receiving the tablets of stone inscribed with the words of the covenant that the LORD had made with you. I was there for forty days and forty nights, and all that time I ate no food and drank no water.
10 Then God gave me the two slabs of stone, engraved with the finger of God. They contained word for word everything that God spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
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The LORD gave me the two tablets on which God had written with his own finger all the words he had spoken to you from the heart of the fire when you were assembled at the mountain.
11 It was at the end of the forty days and nights that God gave me the two slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
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“At the end of the forty days and nights, the LORD handed me the two stone tablets inscribed with the words of the covenant.
12 God said to me, "Get going, and quickly. Get down there, because your people whom you led out of Egypt have ruined everything. In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god."
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Then the LORD said to me, ‘Get up! Go down immediately, for the people you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted gold and made an idol for themselves!’
13 God said, "I look at this people and all I see are hardheaded, hardhearted rebels.
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“The LORD also said to me, ‘I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are.
14 Get out of my way now so I can destroy them. I'm going to wipe them off the face of the map. Then I'll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be."
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Leave me alone so I may destroy them and erase their name from under heaven. Then I will make a mighty nation of your descendants, a nation larger and more powerful than they are.’
15 I turned around and started down the mountain - by now the mountain was blazing with fire - carrying the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms.
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“So while the mountain was blazing with fire I turned and came down, holding in my hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant.
16 That's when I saw it: There you were, sinning against God, your God - you had made yourselves a cast god in the shape of a calf! So soon you had left the road that God had commanded you to walk on.
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There below me I could see that you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had melted gold and made a calf idol for yourselves. How quickly you had turned away from the path the LORD had commanded you to follow!
17 I held the two stone slabs high and threw them down, smashing them to bits as you watched.
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So I took the stone tablets and threw them to the ground, smashing them before your eyes.
18 Then I prostrated myself before God, just as I had at the beginning of the forty days and nights. I ate no food; I drank no water. I did this because of you, all your sins, sinning against God, doing what is evil in God's eyes and making him angry.
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“Then, as before, I threw myself down before the LORD for forty days and nights. I ate no bread and drank no water because of the great sin you had committed by doing what the LORD hated, provoking him to anger.
19 I was terrified of God's furious anger, his blazing anger. I was sure he would destroy you. But once again God listened to me.
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I feared that the furious anger of the LORD, which turned him against you, would drive him to destroy you. But again he listened to me.
20 And Aaron! How furious he was with Aaron - ready to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that same time.
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The LORD was so angry with Aaron that he wanted to destroy him, too. But I prayed for Aaron, and the LORD spared him.
21 But that sin-thing that you made, that calf-god, I took and burned in the fire, pounded and ground it until it was crushed into a fine powder, then threw it into the stream that comes down the mountain.
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I took your sin—the calf you had made—and I melted it down in the fire and ground it into fine dust. Then I threw the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.
22 And then there was Camp Taberah (Blaze), Massah (Testing-Place), and Camp Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving) - more occasions when you made God furious with you.
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“You also made the LORD angry at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah.
23 The most recent was when God sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: "Go. Possess the land that I'm giving you." And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of God, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn't obey him.
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And at Kadesh-barnea the LORD sent you out with this command: ‘Go up and take over the land I have given you.’ But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God and refused to put your trust in him or obey him.
24 You've been rebels against God from the first day I knew you.
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Yes, you have been rebelling against the LORD as long as I have known you.
25 When I was on my face, prostrate before God those forty days and nights after God said he would destroy you,
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“That is why I threw myself down before the LORD for forty days and nights—for the LORD said he would destroy you.
26 I prayed to God for you, "My Master, God, don't destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt.
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I prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, do not destroy them. They are your own people. They are your special possession, whom you redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and your strong hand.
27 "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don't make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin,
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Please overlook the stubbornness and the awful sin of these people, and remember instead your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
28 lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, 'God couldn't do it; he got tired and wasn't able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.'
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If you destroy these people, the Egyptians will say, “The Israelites died because the LORD wasn’t able to bring them to the land he had promised to give them.” Or they might say, “He destroyed them because he hated them; he deliberately took them into the wilderness to slaughter them.”
29 "They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued."
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But they are your people and your special possession, whom you brought out of Egypt by your great strength and powerful arm.’
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.