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The Fifth Book of Moses: Called Deuteronomy, Chapter 9
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1 |
Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to
possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and
fenced up to heaven,
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2 |
A people great and tall, the children of the
Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can
stand before the children of Anak!
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3 |
Understand therefore this day,
that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a
consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down
before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them
quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
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4 |
Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath
cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD
hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of
these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
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5 |
Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart,
dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these
nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and
that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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6 |
Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this
good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a
stiffnecked people.
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7 |
Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to
wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of
the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been
rebellious against the LORD.
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8 |
Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was
angry with you to have destroyed you.
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9 |
When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone,
even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I
abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat
bread nor drink water:
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10 |
And the LORD delivered unto me two tables
of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written
according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount
out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
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11 |
And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights,
that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the
covenant.
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12 |
And the LORD said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from
hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have
corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way
which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.
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13 |
Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this
people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
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14 |
Let me alone,
that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven:
and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.
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15 |
So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned
with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
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16 |
And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your
God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out
of the way which the LORD had commanded you.
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17 |
And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and
brake them before your eyes.
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18 |
And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and
forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all
your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD,
to provoke him to anger.
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19 |
For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the
LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto
me at that time also.
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20 |
And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and
I prayed for Aaron also the same time.
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21 |
And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it
with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was
as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that
descended out of the mount.
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22 |
And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibrothhattaavah, ye
provoked the LORD to wrath.
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23 |
Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadeshbarnea, saying, Go up
and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against
the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor
hearkened to his voice.
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24 |
Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew
you.
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25 |
Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as
I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy
you.
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26 |
I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy
not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through
thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a
mighty hand.
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27 |
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto
the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their
sin:
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28 |
Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the
LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them,
and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in
the wilderness.
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29 |
Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou
broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.
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