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The Battle at Bashan

¹ When we turned and went up the road toward Bashan, Og king of Bashan and all his army came out to fight us at Edrei. ² The Lord said to me, "Don't be afraid of Og, because I will hand him, his whole army, and his land over to you. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon."

³ So the Lord our God gave us Og king of Bashan and all his army; we defeated them and left no one alive. ⁴ Then we captured all of Og's cities, all sixty of them, and took the whole area of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. ⁵ All these were strong cities, with high walls and gates with bars. And there were also many small towns with no walls. ⁶ We completely destroyed them, just like the cities of Sihon king of Heshbon. We killed all the men, women, and children, ⁷ but we kept all the cattle and valuable things from the cities for ourselves.

⁸ So at that time we took the land east of the Jordan River, from the Arnon Ravine to Mount Hermon, from these two Amorite kings. ⁹ (Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonian people, but the Amorites call it Senir.) ¹⁰ We captured all the cities on the high plain and all of Gilead, and we took all of Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns in Og's kingdom of Bashan. ¹¹ (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the few Rephaites. His bed was made of iron, and it was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide! It is still in the Ammonite city of Rabbah.)

The Land Is Divided

¹² At that time we took this land to be our own. I gave the people of Reuben and Gad the land from Aroer by the Arnon Ravine, as well as half of the mountain country of Gilead and the cities in it. ¹³ To the people of East Manasseh I gave the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og. (The area of Argob in Bashan was called the land of the Rephaites. ¹⁴ Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole area of Argob, all the way to the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites. So that land was named for Jair, and even today Bashan is called the Towns of Jair.) ¹⁵ I gave Gilead to Makir. ¹⁶ I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the land that begins at Gilead and goes from the Arnon Ravine (the middle of the Arnon is the border) to the Jabbok River, which is the Ammonite border. ¹⁷ The border on the west was the Jordan River in the Jordan Valley, and it goes from Lake Galilee to the Dead Sea west of Mount Pisgah.

¹⁸ At that time I gave you this command: "The Lord your God has given you this land as your own. Now your fighting men must take their weapons, and you must lead the other Israelites across the river. ¹⁹ Your wives, your young children, and your cattle may stay here. I know you have many cattle, and they may stay here in the cities I have given you, ²⁰ until the Lord also gives your Israelite relatives a place to rest. They will receive the land the Lord your God has given them on the other side of the Jordan River. After that, you may each return to the land I have given you."

²¹ Then I gave this command to Joshua: "You have seen for yourself all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. The Lord will do the same thing to all the kingdoms where you are going. ²² Don't be afraid of them, because the Lord your God will fight for you."

Moses Cannot Enter the Land

²³ Then I begged the Lord: ²⁴ "Lord God, you have begun to show me, your servant, how great you are. You have great strength, and no other god in heaven or on earth can do the powerful things you do. There is no other god like you. ²⁵ Please let me cross the Jordan River so that I may see the good land by the Jordan. I want to see the beautiful mountains and Lebanon."

²⁶ But the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, "That's enough. Don't talk to me anymore about it. ²⁷ Climb to the top of Mount Pisgah and look west, north, south, and east. You can look at the land, but you will not cross the Jordan River. ²⁸ Appoint Joshua and help him be brave and strong. He will lead the people across the river and give them the land that they are to inherit, but you can only look at it." ²⁹ So we stayed in the valley opposite Beth Peor.