7. “For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the works of your hands. He knows your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”
8. So we passed by our brothers, the children of Esau, who lived in Seir, through the way of the plain from Elath and from Ezion Geber, and we turned and passed by the way of the Wilderness of Moab.
9. The Lord said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites, nor contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the children of Lot as a possession.”
10. (The Emites lived there in times past, a people as great and as many and as tall as the Anakites.
11. These people, as well as the Anakites, also were regarded as giants, but the Moabites call them Emites.
12. The Horites also formerly lived in Seir, but the children of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them, and settled there in their place, just as Israel did to the land of its possession, which the Lord gave to them.)
13. “Cross over the Zered Valley.” So we went over the Zered Valley.
14. Now the length of time it took for us to come to Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war perished from among the army, just as the Lord swore to them.
15. For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from among their midst, until they were gone.
16. So it came to pass, when all the men of war were gone and dead from among the people,
17. then the Lord spoke to me, saying,
18. “Today, you are to pass over through Ar, the border of Moab.
19. When you come close to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the Ammonites as a possession, because I have given it to the children of Lot for a possession.”
20. (That also is considered the land of giants. Giants formerly lived there, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummites.
21. They were a great people, as numerous and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites. Then they dispossessed them and lived in their place,
22. just as He had done for the children of Esau, who lived in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them, and they dispossessed them, and lived in their place even to this day.
23. And the Avvites, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites, who came out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and lived in their place.)
24. “Arise, set out, and cross the River Arnon. See, I have given Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land into your hand. Begin to possess it and contend with him in battle.