One Year Bible.

The Command to Leave Horeb

¹These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan — in the Arabah opposite Suph — between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

²It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir. ³In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them. ⁴This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and then at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.

⁵On the east side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying:

⁶The LORD our God said to us at Horeb: “You have stayed at this mountain long enough. ⁷Resume your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the foothills, in the Negev, and along the seacoast to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great River Euphrates.

⁸See, I have placed the land before you. Enter and possess the land that the LORD swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.”

Moses Appoints Leaders

⁹At that time I said to you, “I cannot carry the burden for you alone. ¹⁰The LORD your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky. ¹¹May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times over and bless you as He has promised. ¹²But how can I bear your troubles, burdens, and disputes all by myself? ¹³Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will appoint them as your leaders.”

¹⁴And you answered me and said, “What you propose to do is good.”

¹⁵So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them as leaders over you — as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and as officers for your tribes.

¹⁶At that time I charged your judges: “Hear the disputes between your brothers, and judge fairly between a man and his brother or a foreign resident. ¹⁷Show no partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be intimidated by anyone, for judgment belongs to God. And bring to me any case too difficult for you, and I will hear it.”

¹⁸And at that time I commanded you all the things you were to do.

Twelve Spies Sent Out

¹⁹And just as the LORD our God had commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites, through all the vast and terrifying wilderness you have seen. When we reached Kadesh-barnea, ²⁰I said: “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. ²¹See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”

²²Then all of you approached me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us to search out the land and bring us word of what route to follow and which cities to enter.”

²³The plan seemed good to me, so I selected twelve men from among you, one from each tribe. ²⁴They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied out the land. ²⁵They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us word: “It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.”

Israel’s Rebellion

²⁶But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. ²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, “Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be annihilated. ²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”

²⁹So I said to you: “Do not be terrified or afraid of them! ³⁰The LORD your God, who goes before you, will fight for you, just as you saw Him do for you in Egypt ³¹and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.”

³²But in spite of all this, you did not trust the LORD your God, ³³who went before you on the journey, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day, to seek out a place for you to camp and to show you the road to travel.

Israel’s Penalty

³⁴When the LORD heard your words, He grew angry and swore an oath, saying, ³⁵“Not one of the men of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers, ³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he followed the LORD wholeheartedly.”

³⁷The LORD was also angry with me on your account, and He said, “Not even you shall enter the land. ³⁸Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, will enter it. Encourage him, for he will enable Israel to inherit the land. ³⁹And the little ones you said would become captives — your children who on that day did not know good from evil — will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it. ⁴⁰But you are to turn back and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”

The Defeat at Hormah

⁴¹“We have sinned against the LORD,” you replied. “We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God has commanded us.” Then each of you put on his weapons of war, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

⁴²But the LORD said to me, “Tell them not to go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from defeat by your enemies.”

⁴³So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the command of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country.

⁴⁴Then the Amorites who lived in the hills came out against you and chased you like a swarm of bees. They routed you from Seir all the way to Hormah. ⁴⁵And you returned and wept before the LORD, but He would not listen to your voice or give ear to you.

⁴⁶For this reason you stayed in Kadesh for a long time — a very long time.

Wanderings in the Wilderness

¹Then we turned back and headed for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea, as the LORD had instructed me, and for many days we wandered around Mount Seir.

²At this time the LORD said to me, ³“You have been wandering around this hill country long enough; turn to the north ⁴and command the people: ‘You will pass through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so you must be very careful. ⁵Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a footprint, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as his possession. ⁶You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’”

⁷Indeed, the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.

⁸So we passed by our brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned away from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion-geber, and traveled along the road of the Wilderness of Moab. ⁹Then the LORD said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their possession.”

¹⁰(The Emites used to live there, a people great and many, as tall as the Anakites. ¹¹Like the Anakites, they were also regarded as Rephaim, though the Moabites called them Emites. ¹²The Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land that the LORD gave them as their possession.)

¹³“Now arise and cross over the Brook of Zered.”

So we crossed over the Brook of Zered.

¹⁴The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years, until that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them. ¹⁵Indeed, the LORD’s hand was against them, to eliminate them from the camp, until they had all perished.

¹⁶Now when all the fighting men among the people had died, ¹⁷the LORD said to me, ¹⁸“Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar. ¹⁹But when you get close to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the Ammonites. I have given it to the descendants of Lot as their possession.”

²⁰(That too was regarded as the land of the Rephaim, who used to live there, though the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹They were a people great and many, as tall as the Anakites. But the LORD destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place, ²²just as He had done for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them. They drove them out and have lived in their place to this day. ²³And the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, were destroyed by the Caphtorites, who came out of Caphtor and settled in their place.)

The Defeat of Sihon

²⁴“Arise, set out, and cross the Arnon Valley. See, I have delivered into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle. ²⁵This very day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon all the nations under heaven. They will hear the reports of you and tremble in anguish because of you.”

²⁶So from the Wilderness of Kedemoth I sent messengers with an offer of peace to Sihon king of Heshbon, saying, ²⁷“Let us pass through your land; we will stay on the main road. We will not turn to the right or to the left. ²⁸You can sell us food to eat and water to drink in exchange for silver. Only let us pass through on foot, ²⁹just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for us, until we cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD our God is giving us.”

³⁰But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through, for the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as is the case this day.

³¹Then the LORD said to me, “See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land.”

³²So Sihon and his whole army came out for battle against us at Jahaz. ³³And the LORD our God delivered him over to us, and we defeated him and his sons and his whole army.

³⁴At that time we captured all his cities and devoted to destruction the people of every city, including women and children. We left no survivors. ³⁵We carried off for ourselves only the livestock and the plunder from the cities we captured.

³⁶From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead, not one city had walls too high for us. The LORD our God gave us all of them. ³⁷But you did not go near the land of the Ammonites, or the land along the banks of the Jabbok River, or the cities of the hill country, or any place that the LORD our God had forbidden.

The Destruction of Edom

¹This is the vision of Obadiah:

This is what the Lord GOD says about Edom —

We have heard a message from the LORD;

an envoy has been sent among the nations

to say, “Rise up,

and let us go to battle against her!”—

²“Behold, I will make you small among the nations;

you will be deeply despised.

³The pride of your heart has deceived you,

O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks

whose habitation is the heights,

who say in your heart,

‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’

⁴Though you soar like the eagle

and make your nest among the stars,

even from there I will bring you down,”

declares the LORD.

⁵“If thieves came to you,

if robbers by night —

oh, how you will be ruined —

would they not steal only what they wanted?

If grape gatherers came to you,

would they not leave some gleanings?

⁶But how Esau will be pillaged,

his hidden treasures sought out!

⁷All the men allied with you

will drive you to the border;

the men at peace with you

will deceive and overpower you.

Those who eat your bread

will set a trap for you

without your awareness of it.

⁸In that day, declares the LORD,

will I not destroy the wise men of Edom

and the men of understanding

in the mountains of Esau?

⁹Then your mighty men, O Teman,

will be terrified,

so that everyone in the mountains of Esau

will be cut down in the slaughter.

¹⁰Because of the violence against your brother Jacob,

you will be covered with shame

and cut off forever.

¹¹On the day you stood aloof

while strangers carried off his wealth

and foreigners entered his gate

and cast lots for Jerusalem,

you were just like one of them.

¹²But you should not gloat in that day,

your brother’s day of misfortune,

nor rejoice over the people of Judah

in the day of their destruction,

nor boast proudly

in the day of their distress.

¹³You should not enter the gate of My people

in the day of their disaster,

nor gloat over their affliction

in the day of their disaster,

nor loot their wealth

in the day of their disaster.

¹⁴Nor should you stand at the crossroads

to cut off their fugitives,

nor deliver up their survivors

in the day of their distress.

The Deliverance of Israel

¹⁵For the Day of the LORD is near

for all the nations.

As you have done, it will be done to you;

your recompense will return upon your own head.

¹⁶For as you drank on My holy mountain,

so all the nations will drink continually.

They will drink and gulp it down;

they will be as if they had never existed.

¹⁷But on Mount Zion there will be deliverance,

and it will be holy,

and the house of Jacob

will reclaim their possession.

¹⁸Then the house of Jacob will be a blazing fire,

and the house of Joseph a burning flame;

but the house of Esau will be stubble —

Jacob will set it ablaze and consume it.

Therefore no survivor will remain

from the house of Esau.”

For the LORD has spoken.

¹⁹Those from the Negev will possess the mountains of Esau;

those from the foothills will possess the land of the Philistines.

They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria,

and Benjamin will possess Gilead.

²⁰And the exiles of this host of the Israelites

will possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath;

and the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad

will possess the cities of the Negev.

²¹The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion

to rule over the mountains of Esau.

And the kingdom will belong to the LORD.

The Lamb and the 144,000

¹Then I looked and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads. ²And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of many waters and the loud rumbling of thunder. And the sound I heard was like harpists strumming their harps.

³And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. And no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. ⁴These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. ⁵And no lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

The Three Angels and Babylon’s Fall

⁶Then I saw another angel flying overhead, with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth — to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. ⁷And he said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship the One who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters.”

⁸Then a second angel followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her immorality.”

⁹And a third angel followed them, calling out in a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰he too will drink the wine of God’s anger, poured undiluted into the cup of His wrath. And he will be tormented in fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. ¹¹And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”

¹²Here is a call for the perseverance of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

¹³And I heard a voice from heaven telling me to write, “Blessed are the dead — those who die in the Lord from this moment on.”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds will follow them.”

The Harvest of the Earth

¹⁴And I looked and saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was One like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.

¹⁵Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest, for the crop of the earth is ripe.” ¹⁶So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

¹⁷Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. ¹⁸Still another angel, with authority over the fire, came from the altar and called out in a loud voice to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.”

¹⁹So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes of the earth, and he threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. ²⁰And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and the blood that flowed from it rose as high as the bridles of the horses for a distance of 1,600 stadia.