Deuteronomy

The Merits Belong to the Lord, Not Israel

Listen, Israel: you are to cross the Jordan today to take the land of greater and stronger nations than yourself, nations with grand cities whose walls reach up to heaven.

They are a great people, they are tall—the Anakites whom you have seen and of whom you heard it said that nothing can overcome them.

Today, you will see the Lord, your God, crossing the Jordan before you. He will destroy them all, and he will subject them to you. Then, you will seize the land from them and make them perish, as the Lord promised you.

When the Lord, your God, has destroyed them in your presence, do not think: ‘The Lord brought me to this land and gave it to me because of my goodness.’ The Lord drove those nations out because of their wickedness.

It is not by your merits nor because you are good that you will conquer the land: the Lord will deprive them of the land because they have done evil, and also to fulfill the promise he swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Know, therefore, that the Lord has given you your inheritance, this excellent land, not because of any merit of yours since you are a rebellious people.

Remembrance of Israel’s Rebellions

Remember and do not forget that it was because you rebelled that the Lord became angry with you in the desert, for you have been rebellious towards the Lord from the day you left Egypt until you arrived here.

Then, you provoked his anger at Horeb, and he was ready to destroy you.

When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the Covenant that the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking.

And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with his finger, containing all the words that he told you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, on the day of the Assembly.

When the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the Covenant, at the end of the forty days and forty nights,

he said to me: “Go down from this mountain at once because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have suddenly abandoned how I taught them, and they have made an idol for themselves.”

And the Lord also told me: “I see this people; they are rebellious.

Let me alone, and I will destroy them and wipe out their name from under heaven. And out of you, I will make other people more numerous and greater than they.”

I, therefore, went down from the mountain, from the summit, which was burning, holding in my hands the two tablets of the Covenant.

And I saw that you had sinned against the Lord, your God, and that you had made a molten calf.

How suddenly had you turned aside from the way the Lord had taught you! Holding the two tablets with both hands, I hurled them down and broke them into pieces in the sight of all.

Then I fell prostrate before the Lord and, as before, I passed forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking, for the sin which you had committed by doing evil in the sight of the Lord and arousing his anger.

I was afraid that the wrath and anger of the Lord against you had reached the point that he wanted to destroy you. And the Lord listened to me once more.

The Lord was also angry with Aaron and ready to destroy him. Similarly, I also interceded for Aaron.

Regarding the sin, that calf you had made —I threw it in the fire, broke it into pieces, and ground it until it was fine as dust. Then I threw the dust into the brook flowing down the mountain.

At Taberah and Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the wrath of the Lord.

And when he wanted you to leave Kadesh-Barnea, saying, “Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,” you rebelled again. You did not believe the Lord or want to listen to his voice.

You have been rebellious against the Lord since I have known you.

So, I lay prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights because he said he would destroy you.

I prayed to the Lord and said to him: “O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you redeemed with your might, whom you brought out of Egypt with the strength of your hand.

Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness, or their sins,

that it may not be said in the land from which you brought us out: ‘The Lord was not able to bring them to the land which he had promised them. He does not like them, so he brought them out of Egypt to slay them in the desert.’

Do not forget that they are your people and possessions whom you brought out of Egypt with your great power and outstretched arm.”