The Daily Audio Bible

40 years in the desert

2 Then we turned back to travel towards the desert. We went along the road to the Red Sea, as the Lord had told me. For many days, we walked around the region of Mount Seir.^[a]

² Then the Lord said to me, ³ ‘You have walked round this mountain for a long time. Now turn to the north. ⁴ Give this message to the Israelites: “You will soon go through the country that belongs to Esau's descendants. They have the same ancestors that you have. They live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so be very careful.^{[b] 5} Do not attack them at all. I will not give any of their land to you, not even enough ground to put your foot on. I have given the hills around Mount Seir to Esau, for his descendants to live there. ⁶ When you eat their food and you drink their water, you must pay them for it. ⁷ I, the Lord your God, have blessed you in everything that you have done. I have taken care of you as you travelled through this great desert. I have been with you for 40 years. You have received everything that you needed.” ’

⁸ So we went on. We passed the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They have the same ancestors that we have. We left the road through the Jordan Valley that goes from Elath and Ezion-Geber. Instead, we travelled on the road through the Moab desert.

⁹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not make the people of Moab angry. Do not start a fight against them. I will not give any part of their land to you. I have given Ar to Lot's descendants to be their city.’^[c]

¹⁰ (Some people called the Emites once lived there. There were many of them and they were as strong and tall as the Anakites. ¹¹ Some people called the Emites and the Anakites, ‘Rephaites’. But the people from Moab called them ‘Emites’. ¹² Before this time, the Horites lived in Seir, but the descendants of Esau chased them away. They destroyed the Horites and they lived in their country. The Israelites did the same thing to the people who had lived in the land that the Lord gave to them.)

¹³ Then the Lord said, ‘Get up now and cross the Zered valley.’ So we went across the stream.

¹⁴ 38 years had passed since we left Kadesh-Barnea. By the time we crossed the Zered valley, all the men who had been old enough to fight had now died. The Lord had said that this would happen.^{[d] 15} The Lord himself removed them so that they all died, one by one.

¹⁶ Finally, the last one of these men died and no longer lived among the people. ¹⁷ Then the Lord said to me, ¹⁸ ‘Today you will cross the border of Moab at Ar. ¹⁹ You will go into the land of the Ammonites. Do not make them angry so that they fight against you. I will not give any of their land to you. I have already given it to Lot's descendants so that they can live there.’

²⁰ (People also call this region the land of the Rephaites, who had once lived there. The Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹ There were many Zamzummites and they were as tall and strong as the Anakites. The Lord destroyed the Rephaites when the Ammonites moved in. Then the Ammonites lived there instead of the Rephaites. ²² The Lord had done the same thing for Esau's descendants who lived in Seir. The Lord destroyed the Horites when Esau's descendants moved in and chased them out. Esau's descendants still live in their country today. ²³ The same thing happened to the Avvites.^[e] They had lived in villages as far west as Gaza. But Philistines came from Crete island and they killed the Avvites. The Philistines lived there instead.)

²⁴ Then God said, ‘Now go across Arnon valley. Look, I have given you the land of King Sihon, the Amorite. He is the king of Heshbon. You must go and fight against him. Attack him and take his land for yourselves. ²⁵ Today I will begin to make all the people in the world afraid of you. They will hear reports about you. That will cause them to be very frightened. They will shake with fear!’

Sihon, king of Heshbon

²⁶ When we were in Kedemoth desert, I sent a message to Sihon, king of Heshbon. We wanted to agree that we would not fight against each other. ²⁷ I said to him, ‘Please let us go through your country. We will only travel along the road. We will not turn away from the road, to the right side or to the left side. ²⁸ Please sell us food to eat and water to drink. We will pay you with silver coins. We only want to walk through your country. ²⁹ The descendants of Esau who live in Seir let us do this. So did the descendants of Moab who live in Ar. We will go through your country and then we will cross the Jordan River. We will go into the land that the Lord our God is giving to us.’

³⁰ But Sihon, the king of Heshbon, refused to let us travel through his country. He was too proud to agree with us. The Lord our God had caused him to be like that. He wanted to put King Sihon under your power and give his land to you. You still live in his land today.

³¹ The Lord said to me, ‘Look! I have begun to give King Sihon and his country to you. Now you must begin to fight against him and take his land for yourselves.’

³² Then Sihon and all his army came out to fight a battle against us at Jahaz. ³³ The Lord our God put him under our power. We won the battle against him. We killed King Sihon and his sons and all his soldiers. ³⁴ At that time we took all his towns and we gave everything as a gift to the Lord. We killed the men, women and children. We left no one alive. ³⁵ But we kept the farm animals and other valuable things in the cities for ourselves. ³⁶ The Lord our God gave us all their towns. That included Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon valley, the city in the valley and other towns all the way to Gilead. No town was too strong for us to take.

³⁷ But we did not go into the Ammonites' country. We did not go into the Jabbok valley. We did not go near the towns in the hill country. The Lord our God had commanded us not to attack those places.

Og, king of Bashan

3 Then we turned and we went along the road towards Bashan. Og, king of Bashan, marched out with his whole army to attack us at Edrei. ² But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not be afraid of him. I have given him to you with his whole army and his land. You must do the same thing to Og as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon.’

³ So the Lord our God put Og, king of Bashan, under our power, as well as his whole army. We killed them all so that we left no one alive. ⁴ Then we took all of his cities. We took power over all the cities in the region of Argob where King Og of Bashan ruled. There were 60 cities. ⁵ All the cities had high walls around them, with gates that the people locked. There were also very many villages which did not have walls around them. ⁶ We destroyed them completely as a gift to the Lord. We had done the same thing to the cities of Sihon, king of Heshbon. We destroyed every city and we killed all the men, women and children. ⁷ But we kept all the animals and the valuable things from the cities for ourselves.

⁸ So, at that time, we took power over all the land that the two Amorite kings, Og and Bashan, had ruled. Their land was east of the Jordan River, from the Arnon valley to Mount Hermon. ⁹ (The people from Sidon call Mount Hermon ‘Sirion’. The Amorites call it ‘Senir’.) ¹⁰ We took all their cities in the high, flat land and cities in the whole of Gilead and in Bashan. We went as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities that belonged to the kingdom of Og in Bashan. ¹¹ Og, king of Bashan, was the only descendant of the Rephaites who had still been alive. He had an iron bed that is still in the Ammonites' town, Rabbah. It was 4 metres long and 2 metres wide.

Moses gives land to three tribes

¹² When we had taken power over all that land, I gave some of it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad. I gave them the land north of Aroer near the Arnon valley. I also gave them half of the hill country of Gilead and the cities there. ¹³ I gave the other part of Gilead to one half of the tribe of Manasseh. I also gave Og's kingdom, Bashan, to them.^[f] People called all the region of Argob in Bashan the land of the Rephaites.

¹⁴ Jair belonged to the tribe of Manasseh. He took power over all the region of Argob. He went as far as the borders of Geshur and Maakah. Then he gave his own name to that land. To this day, Bashan has the name ‘Jair's towns’. ¹⁵ I gave Gilead to Makir, who also belonged to the tribe of Manasseh.

¹⁶ As for the tribes of Reuben and Gad, I gave them land from Gilead to the Arnon valley. The middle of the valley was the border of their land. Their land went as far as the Jabbok valley, which is the border of the Ammonites' land. ¹⁷ The valley of the Jordan River was also a border of their land. It went from Lake Galilee as far as the Salt Sea, with Mount Pisgah to the east.^[g]

¹⁸ At that time I commanded you, ‘The Lord your God has given this land to you, for you to live in it. But all your soldiers must take their weapons and they must cross the Jordan River. You must go in front of the other Israelite tribes across the river. ¹⁹ But your wives, your children and your animals may stay here in the towns that I have given to you. I know that you have many animals. ²⁰ Your men must fight to help the other Israelites until the Lord gives them a safe place to live. He has already given you a safe place to live. Now you must help the other Israelites to take the land which the Lord your God is giving to them. That land is on the other side of the Jordan River. When they take the land for themselves, you may return here to the land that I have given to you.’

Moses will not cross the Jordan River

²¹ At that time, I commanded Joshua, ‘You have seen everything that the Lord your God has done to those two kings, Sihon and Og. He will do the same thing to the kingdoms where you are going. ²² So do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God himself will fight to help you.’

²³ At that time, I asked the Lord many times, ²⁴ ‘Almighty Lord, I am your servant. You are showing me how great and how strong you are. There is no other god in heaven or on earth that can do the great things that you do. ²⁵ Please let me go across the Jordan River! I want to see the good land over there. I want to see the beautiful hills and the mountains in Lebanon.’

²⁶ But the Lord was angry with me, because of you. He would not answer my prayer. He said, ‘You have said enough! Do not speak to me about that any more. ²⁷ Go up to the top of Mount Pisgah. Stand there and look all around, to the west, north, south and east. Look carefully at the land, because you will not go across the Jordan River. ²⁸ Now you must tell Joshua what to do. Tell him to be brave and strong. He will lead my people across the river into the land that you see. He will help them to take the land for themselves.’

²⁹ After that, we stayed in the valley near Beth-Peor.

Jesus chooses 12 men

¹² One day Jesus went up a mountain to pray. He remained there all night and he was praying to God. ¹³ In the morning, he asked all his disciples to come to him. Then he chose 12 of them and he called them his apostles.^[a] These are their names:

Jesus teaches people

¹⁷ After Jesus had chosen these 12 men, they all came down the mountain. He stopped and he stood on a flat place. A large crowd of his disciples stood around him. There were also many people from Jerusalem, and from other towns of Judea, and from places on the coast near Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸ These people had all come to hear Jesus teach. Those people who were ill wanted him to make them well. He also made well those people who had bad spirits. ¹⁹ All the people were trying to touch him, because he was using great power to make each person well.

²⁰ Jesus looked at his disciples. He spoke this message to them:

²² People may hate you, because you believe in me, the Son of Man. They may say bad things against you and make you go away from them. They may say that you are very bad. When that happens, be happy. ²³ God will prepare many good things for you in heaven. So be very happy when people do these bad things to you! Jump up and down because you are so happy. Their ancestors did the same bad things to God's prophets long ago.

²⁶ If people always say good things about you now, it will be very bad for you. Their ancestors also said good things about the false prophets long ago.’

Love people that want to hurt you

²⁷ Jesus then said, ‘I say this to you who are listening carefully to me: Love the people who want to hurt you. Do good things to people that hate you. ²⁸ Say good things to people that say bad things against you. Pray for people who give you pain.

²⁹ Someone may slap you on one side of your face. Then you should let him slap the other side of your face too. Someone may take away your coat. If he does, do not stop him from taking your shirt too. ³⁰ When anyone asks you for something, give it to him. Someone may take something that belongs to you. If he does, let him keep it. Do not ask to have it back again. ³¹ Do the good things for other people that you would want them to do for you.

³² Do you only love people who love you? God will not praise you just for doing that! Even bad people love those people who love them. ³³ Do you only do good things to people that do good things to you? God will not praise you just for doing that! Even bad people do the same thing. ³⁴ Do you lend things only to people that will give your things back to you? God will not praise you for doing that! Even bad people lend things to other people when they believe that they will get them back again. ³⁵ No! I am telling you to love people that want to hurt you. Do good things to them. Lend things to people even though you may not receive your things back again. Then God will prepare good things for you. He is kind even to people who do not say “thank you”. He is kind even to very bad people. If you live like this, you will show that you really are children of the powerful God who is over all. ³⁶ You should be kind to other people, as God your Father is kind.

³⁷ Do not say to anyone, “You are a bad person.” Then God will not say to you, “You are a bad person.” Do not say to anyone, “God should punish you because you are bad.” Then God will not say that you are guilty. Forgive other people and God will forgive you. ³⁸ Give to other people and God will give to you. He will give to you even more than you gave. He will fill your pocket until no more will go in.^[e] It will be so full that it will come out over the top. Think about how you give to other people. God will give in the same way to you.’

This psalm is a song for the music leader. He is to use stringed instruments.

All the nations should praise God^[a]