1. “Hear, Israel, you are about to cross the Jordan today to go to dispossess nations larger and more numerous than you, great cities fortified with high walls,
2. a great and tall people, the sons of the Anakites, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who could stand before the sons of Anak?’
3. You should know today that Yahweh your God is the one crossing ahead of you as a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you; so you will dispossess them, and you will destroy them quickly, just as Yahweh promised you.
4. “You shall not say to yourself when Yahweh your God is driving them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness Yahweh brought me to take possession of this land’; but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh is driving them out before you.
5. It is not because of your righteousness and because of the uprightness of your heart that you are coming to take possession of their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God is driving them before you, and in order to confirm the promise that Yahweh swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
6. “So you should understand that it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to take possession of it, because you are a stubborn people.
7. Remember, do not forget, that you provoked Yahweh your God in the desert, and from the day that you went out from the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were rebelling against Yahweh.
8. “And remember at Horeb you provoked Yahweh, and Yahweh became angry enough to destroy you.
9. When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh made with you, and remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights, I did not eat food and I did not drink water.