1. “Then we turned around and headed back across the wilderness toward the Red Sea, just as the lord had instructed me, and we wandered around in the region of Mount Seir for a long time.
2. “Then at last the lord said to me,
3. ‘You have been wandering around in this hill country long enough; turn to the north.
4. Give these orders to the people: “You will pass through the country belonging to your relatives the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. The Edomites will feel threatened, so be careful.
5. Do not bother them, for I have given them all the hill country around Mount Seir as their property, and I will not give you even one square foot of their land.
6. If you need food to eat or water to drink, pay them for it.
7. For the lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.”’
8. “So we bypassed the territory of our relatives, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We avoided the road through the Arabah Valley that comes up from Elath and Ezion-geber.“Then as we turned north along the desert route through Moab,
9. the lord warned us, ‘Do not bother the Moabites, the descendants of Lot, or start a war with them. I have given them Ar as their property, and I will not give you any of their land.’”