13. Now get ready to cross the Wadi Zered.So we crossed the Wadi Zered.
14. Now thirty-eight years had elapsed between our departure from Kadesh-barnea and the crossing of the Wadi Zered; in the meantime the whole generation of soldiers had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn they should.
15. Indeed the Lord’s own hand was against them, to rout them from the camp completely.
16. When at length death had put an end to all the soldiers among the people,
17. the Lord said to me,
18. You are now about to leave Ar and the territory of Moab behind.
19. As you come opposite the Ammonites, do not show hostility or come in conflict with them, for I will not give you possession of any land of the Ammonites, since I have given it to the descendants of Lot as their possession.
20. (This also is considered a country of the Rephaim; formerly the Rephaim dwelt there. The Ammonites call them Zamzummim,
21. a people great and numerous and as tall as the Anakim. But these, too, the Lord cleared out of the way for the Ammonites, so that they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place.
22. He did the same for the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir, by clearing the Horites out of their way, so that they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place down to the present.
23. As for the Avvim, who once lived in villages in the vicinity of Gaza, the Caphtorim, migrating from Caphtor, cleared them away and dwelt in their place.)
24. Advance now across the Wadi Arnon. I now deliver into your power Sihon, the Amorite king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession; engage him in battle.
25. This day I will begin to put a fear and dread of you into the peoples everywhere under heaven, so that at the mention of your name they will quake and tremble before you.
26. So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with this offer of peace:
27. “Let me pass through your country. I will travel only on the road. I will not turn aside either to the right or to the left.
28. The food I eat you will sell me for money, and the water I drink, you will give me for money. Only let me march through,
29. as the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar have done, until I cross the Jordan into the land the Lord, our God, is about to give us.”
30. But Sihon, king of Heshbon, refused to let us pass through his land, because the Lord, your God, made him stubborn in mind and obstinate in heart that he might deliver him into your power, as indeed he has now done.