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.
10. And Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was writing according to all the words that Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain, from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11. And then at the end of forty days and forty nights, Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
12. And Yahweh said to me, ‘Come now, go down quickly from this mountain because your people behave corruptly whom you brought out from Egypt, for they turned quickly from the way that I commanded them to follow; they have made for themselves a cast image.’
13. And Yahweh spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and look! They are a stubborn people.
14. Leave me alone, and let me destroy them, and let me blot out their name from under heaven, and let me make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than they!’
15. “And I turned, and I went down the mountain, as the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
16. And I looked, and indeed you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made for yourselves an image of a calf of cast metal; you had turned quickly from the way that Yahweh had commanded for you.
17. And I took hold of the two tablets, and I threw them out of my two hands and smashed them before your eyes.
18. And then I lay prostrate before Yahweh, as earlier, forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food and I did not drink water because of all your sins that you committed, by doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh and so provoking him.
19. For I was in dread from being in the presence of the anger and the wrath with which Yahweh was angry with you so as to destroy you, but Yahweh listened to me also at that time.