1. “Then we did what the Lord told me to do. We went back into the desert on the road that leads to the Red Sea. We traveled for many days to go around the mountains of Seir.
2. Then the Lord said to me,
3. ‘You have traveled around these mountains long enough. Turn north.
4. Tell the people this: You will pass through the land of Seir. This land belongs to your relatives, the descendants of Esau. They will be afraid of you. Be very careful.
5. Don’t fight them. I will not give you any of their land—not even a foot of it, because I gave the hill country of Seir to Esau to keep as his own.
6. You must pay the people of Esau for any food you eat or water you drink there.
7. Remember that the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He knows about everything that happened on the trip through this great desert. The Lord your God has been with you these 40 years. You have always had everything you needed.’
8. “So we passed by our relatives, the people of Esau living there in Seir. We left the road that leads from the Jordan Valley to the towns of Elath and Ezion Geber. We turned onto the road that goes to the desert in Moab.
9. “The Lord said to me, ‘Don’t bother the Moabites. Don’t start a war against them. I will not give you any of their land. They are the descendants of Lot, and I gave them the city of Ar.’”
10. (In the past, the Emites lived in Ar. They were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakites.