1. we finally turned and went into the desert, along the road to the Gulf of Aqaba, as the Lord had commanded, and we spent a long time wandering about in the hill country of Edom.
2. “Then the Lord told me
3. that we had spent enough time wandering about in those hills and that we should go north.
4. He told me to give you the following instructions: ‘You are about to go through the hill country of Edom, the territory of your distant relatives, the descendants of Esau. They will be afraid of you,
5. but you must not start a war with them, because I am not going to give you so much as a square metre of their land. I have given Edom to Esau's descendants.
6. You may buy food and water from them.’
7. “Remember how the Lord your God has blessed you in everything that you have done. He has taken care of you as you wandered through this vast desert. He has been with you these forty years, and you have had everything you needed.
8. “So we moved on and left the road that goes from the towns of Elath and Eziongeber to the Dead Sea, and we turned north-east towards Moab.
9. The Lord said to me, ‘Don't trouble the people of Moab, the descendants of Lot, or start a war against them. I have given them the city of Ar, and I am not going to give you any of their land.’ ”
10. (A mighty race of giants called the Emim used to live in Ar. They were as tall as the Anakim, another race of giants.
11. Like the Anakim they were also known as Rephaim; but the Moabites called them Emim.
12. The Horites used to live in Edom, but the descendants of Esau chased them out, destroyed their nation, and settled there themselves, just as the Israelites later chased their enemies out of the land that the Lord gave them.)
13. “Then we crossed the River Zered as the Lord told us to do.
14. This was 38 years after we had left Kadesh Barnea. All the fighting men of that generation had died, as the Lord had said they would.
15. The Lord kept on opposing them until he had destroyed them all.