Introduction to Moses’ first speech

1 In this book is written what Moses/I said to the Israeli people. He/I told them these things when they/we were in the desert, on the east side of the Jordan River. They/We had set up our tents near a place named Suph, between Paran town on the one side of the river and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab towns on the other side of the river. 2 To walk from Sinai Mountain to the Kadesh-Barnea oasis, people usually travel for only eleven days, going by way of the hilly area named Edom.

3 Forty years after ◄the Israelis/we► left Egypt, in the middle of January, Moses/I told the Israeli people everything that Yahweh had commanded him/me to tell them. 4 This was after they/we had defeated Sihon, the king of the Amor people-group, who lived in Heshbon city, and Og, the king of the Bashan region who lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei towns.

5 Moses/I told them these things while the people were in the Moab region, on the east side of the Jordan River. He/I ◄explained to them/enabled them to understand► God’s laws. This is what he/I said to them:

6 “Yahweh our God said to us when we were at Sinai Mountain, ‘You have stayed for a very long time at the bottom of this mountain. 7 So now continue traveling. Go to the hilly area where the Amor people-group lives and to the nearby areas—to the Jordan River Valley, to the hilly region, to the western ◄foothills/hills at the bottom of the mountains►, to the desert area to the south, to the Mediterranean Seacoast, to all of Canaan land, to the Lebanon Mountains, and northeast to the great Euphrates River. 8 Note that I will give that land to you. I, Yahweh, promised to your ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that I would give it to them and to their descendants. So now go and occupy it.’ ”