1. “Listen, people of Israel! Today you are about to cross the River Jordan and occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you. Their cities are large, with walls that reach the sky.
2. The people themselves are tall and strong; they are giants, and you have heard it said that no one can stand against them.
3. But now you will see for yourselves that the Lord your God will go ahead of you like a raging fire. He will defeat them as you advance, so that you will drive them out and destroy them quickly, as he promised.
4. “After the Lord your God has driven them out for you, do not say to yourselves that he brought you in to possess this land because you deserved it. No, the Lord is going to drive these people out for you because they are wicked.
5. It is not because you are good and do what is right that the Lord is letting you take their land. He will drive them out because they are wicked and because he intends to keep the promise that he made to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6. You can be sure that the Lord is not giving you this fertile land because you deserve it. No, you are a stubborn people.
7. “Never forget how you made the Lord your God angry in the desert. From the day that you left Egypt until the day you arrived here, you have rebelled against him.
8. Even at Mount Sinai you made the Lord angry — angry enough to destroy you.
9. I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets on which was written the covenant that the Lord had made with you. I stayed there forty days and nights and did not eat or drink anything.
10. Then the Lord gave me the two stone tablets on which he had written with his own hand what he had said to you from the fire on the day that you were gathered there at the mountain.
11. Yes, after those forty days and nights the Lord gave me the two stone tablets on which he had written the covenant.