Amorite Kings Defeated

²¹ Israel sent messengers to say to Sihon^(A) king of the Amorites: ²² “Let us travel through your land. We won’t go into the fields or vineyards. We won’t drink any well water. We will travel the King’s Highway until we have traveled through your territory.”^{(B) 23} But Sihon would not let Israel travel through his territory. Instead, he gathered his whole army and went out to confront Israel in the wilderness. When he came to Jahaz,^(C) he fought against Israel. ²⁴ Israel struck him with the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok,^(D) but only up to the Ammonite border, because it was fortified.^[a][b]

²⁵ Israel took all the cities and lived in all these Amorite cities, including Heshbon and all its villages. ²⁶ Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken control of all his land as far as the Arnon. ²⁷ Therefore the poets^[c] say:

³¹ So Israel lived in the Amorites’ land. ³² After Moses sent spies to Jazer, Israel captured its villages and drove out the Amorites who were there.

³³ Then they turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan^(H) came out against them with his whole army to do battle at Edrei.^{(I) 34} But the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.”^{(J) 35} So they struck him, his sons, and his whole army until no one was left,^[h] and they took possession of his land.^(K)

²⁶ “So I sent messengers with an offer of peace to Sihon king of Heshbon from the Wilderness of Kedemoth, saying, ²⁷ ‘Let us travel through your land; we will keep strictly to the highway. We will not turn to the right or the left.^{(A) 28} You can sell us food in exchange for silver so we may eat, and give us water for silver so we may drink. Only let us travel through on foot, ²⁹ just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir did for us, and the Moabites who live in Ar, until we cross the Jordan into the land the Lord our God is giving us.’ ³⁰ But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us travel through his land, for the Lord your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to hand him over to you, as has now taken place.

³¹ “Then the Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land to you. Begin to take possession of it.’ ³² So Sihon and his whole army came out against us for battle at Jahaz. ³³ The Lord our God handed him over to us, and we defeated him, his sons, and his whole army. ³⁴ At that time we captured all his cities and completely destroyed the people of every city, including the women and children. We left no survivors. ³⁵ We took only the livestock and the spoil from the cities we captured as plunder for ourselves. ³⁶ There was no city that was inaccessible to^[a] us, from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead.^(B) The Lord our God gave everything to us. ³⁷ But you did not go near the Ammonites’ land, all along the bank of the Jabbok River,^(C) the cities of the hill country, or any place that the Lord our God had forbidden.^(D)

Defeat of Og of Bashan

3 “Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan^(E) came out against us with his whole army to do battle at Edrei.^{(F) 2} But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites,^(G) who lived in Heshbon.’ ³ So the Lord our God also handed over Og king of Bashan and his whole army to us. We struck him until there was no survivor left. ⁴ We captured all his cities at that time. There wasn’t a city that we didn’t take from them: 60 cities, the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. ⁵ All these were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a large number of rural villages. ⁶ We completely destroyed them, as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying the men, women, and children of every city. ⁷ But we took all the livestock and the spoil from the cities as plunder for ourselves.^(H)

The Land of the Transjordan Tribes

⁸ “At that time we took the land from the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon, ⁹ which the Sidonians call Sirion, but the Amorites call Senir, ¹⁰ all the cities of the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of Og’s kingdom in Bashan.^{(I) 11} (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron.^[b] Isn’t it in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It is 13 feet six inches long and six feet wide by a standard measure.^[c])

⁷ When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we defeated them.