Numbers 21:16-32

¹⁶From there, the Israelis traveled to Beer. There was a well there, where Yahweh previously had said to Moses/me, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.”

¹⁷There the Israelis sang this song: “O well, give us water! Sing about this well!

¹⁸Sing about this well which our leaders dug; they dug out the dirt with their royal scepters and their walking sticks.” Then the Israelis left that desert and went through Mattanah,

¹⁹Nahaliel, and Bamoth villages.

²⁰Then they went to the valley in Moab where Pisgah Mountain rises above the desert.

²¹Then the Israelis sent messengers to Sihon, the king of the Amor people-group. This was the message that they/we gave him:

²²“Allow us to travel through your country. We will stay on the king's highway, the main road that goes from the south to the north, until we have finished traveling through your land. We will not walk through any field or vineyard, or drink water from your wells.”

²³But King Sihon refused. He would not allow them to walk through his land. Instead, he sent his whole army to attack the Israelis in the desert. They attacked the Israelis at Jahaz village.

²⁴But the Israelis completely defeated them and occupied their land, from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north. They stopped at the border of the land where the Ammon people-group lived, because the Ammon army was defending the border strongly.

²⁵So the Israelis occupied all the cities and towns where the Amor people-group lived, and some of the Israelis began to live in them. They occupied Heshbon city and the nearby villages.

²⁶Heshbon was the capital of the country. It was the city where King Sihon ruled. His army had previously defeated the army of the king of Moab, and then his people had begun to live in all of the land of Moab as far as the Arnon River in the south.

²⁷For that reason, one of the poets wrote long ago, “Come to Heshbon, the city where King Sihon ruled. We want the city to be restored/rebuilt.

²⁸A fire blazed from Heshbon; it burned down Ar city in Moab, it destroyed everything on the hills along the Arnon River.

²⁹You people of Moab, terrible things have happened to you! You people who worship your god Chemosh have been ◄annihilated/wiped out►! The men who worshiped MET Chemosh have run away and are now refugees, and the women who worshiped him have been captured by the army of Sihon, the king of the Amor people-group.

³⁰But we have defeated Sihon and those descendants of Amor, all the way from Heshbon in the north to Dibon city in the south. We have completely obliterated/destroyed them as far as Nophah and Medeba towns.”

³¹So the Israeli people began to live in the land where the Amor people-group lived.

³²After Moses/I sent some men to explore the area near Jazer city, Israeli people began to live in all the towns in that region and expelled the Amor people-group who lived there.