Reminder: Not Because of Your Righteousness

1Listen, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than yourself, great cities fortified up to the sky, 2a people strong and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?” 3But know today that YHWH your God will cross over ahead of you as a devouring fire. Hᴇ will destroy them and bring them down before you. So you will drive them out and make them perish quickly, as YHWH has told to you.

4After YHWH your God has driven them out from before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness YHWH has brought me in to possess this land.” No, YHWH drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations. 5Not because of your righteousness or because of the uprightness of your heart will you go in to possess their land. Instead it is because of the wickedness of these nations that YHWH your God drive them out from before you, and so that ʜᴇ might establish the word which YHWH swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6Understand, then, that YHWH your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

Reminder: The Golden Calf

7You must remember and not forget how you provoked YHWH your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until y’all came to this place, y’all have been rebellious against YHWH. 8At Horeb y’all provoked YHWH to wrath, and YHWH was angry enough with y’all to destroy y’all. 9When I went up on the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant which YHWH made with y’all, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. 10YHWH delivered to me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God. On them were all the words which YHWH spoke to y’all on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly.

11It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that YHWH gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant. 12YHWH said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!”

13Furthermore YHWH spoke to me, saying, “I have seen these people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people. 14Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”

15So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16When I looked, I saw that y’all had sinned against YHWH y’all’s God. Y’all had made a molded calf for yourselves*. Y’all had quickly turned away from the way that YHWH had commanded y’all. 17I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, shattering them before y’all’s eyes. 18I fell down before YHWH, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water, because of all y’all’s sin which y’all committed, doing what was evil in YHWH’s sight and provoking ʜɪᴍ to anger. 19For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure of YHWH, because was angry enough with y’all to destroy y’all. But YHWH listened to me that time also. 20YHWH was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. 21I took the sinful calf that y’all had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain. 22At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah y’all continued to provoke YHWH to rage. 23When YHWH sent y’all from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Y’all are to go up and possess the land that I have given y’all,” y’all rebelled against the commandment of YHWH y’all’s God, and y’all didn’t believe ʜɪᴍ or listen to ʜɪꜱ voice. 24Y’all have been rebellious against YHWH from the first day that I knew y’all. 25So I fell down before YHWH the forty days and forty nights, indeed I fell down because YHWH had said ʜᴇ would destroy y’all. 26I prayed to YHWH, and said, “Lord YHWH, don’t destroy your people and your inheritance that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t look at the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness, or their sin. 28Otherwise the land you brought us out from will say, ‘Because YHWH was not able to bring them into the land that ʜᴇ promised to them, and because ʜᴇ hated them, ʜᴇ has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29Yet they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”