1. "Listen, O Israel: You shall cross over the Jordan today, in order to possess nations, very great and stronger than yourself, cities vast and walled even to the sky,
2. a people great and lofty, the sons of the Anakim, whom you yourselves have seen and heard, against whom no one is able to stand.
3. Therefore, you shall know today that the Lord your God himself will pass over before you, like a devouring and consuming fire, to crush and to wipe away and to utterly ruin them before your face, quickly, just as he has spoken to you.
4. You should not say in your heart, when the Lord your God will have destroyed them in your sight: 'It is because of my justice that the Lord led me in, so that I might possess this land, while these nations have been destroyed because of their impiety.'
5. For it is not because of your justices or the uprightness of your heart that you will enter, so that you may possess their lands. Instead, it is because they have acted wickedly that they are destroyed upon your arrival, and so that the Lord may accomplish his word, which he promised under oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6. Therefore, know that the Lord your God will not give you this excellent land as a possession due to your justices, for you are a very stiff-necked people.
7. Remember, and never forget, how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness. You have always contended against the Lord, from the day that you went forth from Egypt, even to this place.
8. For at Horeb also, you provoked him, and, becoming angry, he was willing to destroy you,
9. when I ascended onto the mountain, so that I might receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord formed with you. And I persevered on the mountain for forty days and nights, neither eating bread, nor drinking water.