4. Command the people saying, “You are about to cross into the territory of your relatives, the sons of Esau, who dwell in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so be very careful.
5. Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land—not even a footprint—because I have given the hill country of Seir to Esau as a possession.
6. You are to buy food from them for money so that you may eat, and you are also to buy water from them for money so that you may drink.
7. For Adonai your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand—He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. These 40 years Adonai your God has been with you—you have lacked nothing.”’
8. “So we went on past our relatives the sons of Esau who dwell in Seir, away from the way of the Arabah from Elath and Ezion-geber. We turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.
9. “Adonai said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or engage them in battle. For I will not give you any of his land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for a possession.
10. (The Emim used to live there—a great and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim.
11. These people also are considered Rephaim, like the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim.
12. Now the Horites used to live in Seir, but the sons of Esau drove them out and destroyed them from before themselves and settled in their place—just as Israel did to the land of its possession that Adonai gave to them.)
13. Now rise up, and cross over the Wadi Zered.’ So we went over the Wadi Zered.
14. “The time that we traveled from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Wadi Zered was 38 years—until all the generation of the men of war from within the camp came to an end, as Adonai had sworn to them.
15. Indeed, the hand of Adonai was against them, to destroy them from within the camp until they came to their end.
16. “Now when all the men of war had finished dying from among the people,
17. Adonai spoke to me saying,
18. ‘Today you are about to cross the border of Moab at Ar.