Numbers 21:2-27

²Then the Israelis solemnly vowed: “Yahweh, if you will help us to defeat these people, we will completely destroy all their towns.”

³Yahweh heard what they requested, and he enabled them to defeat the army of the Canaan people-group. The Israeli soldiers killed all the people and destroyed their towns. Ever since that time, that place has been called Hormah which means ❛destruction❜.

⁴Then the Israelis left Hor Mountain and traveled on the road towards the Red Sea, in order to go around the land of Edom. But the people became impatient along the way,

⁵and they began to grumble/complain against God and against Moses/me. They said, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in this desert RHQ? There is nothing to eat here, and nothing to drink. And we detest this lousy manna food!”

⁶So Yahweh sent poisonous snakes among them. Many of the people were bitten by the snakes and died.

⁷Then the people came to Moses/me and cried out, saying, “We now know that we have sinned against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh, asking that he will take away the snakes!” So Moses/I prayed for the people.

⁸Then Yahweh told him/me, “Make a model/image of a poisonous snake, and attach it to the top of a pole. If those who are bitten by the snakes look at that model, they will ◄recover/get well►.”

⁹So Moses/I made a snake from bronze and attached it to the top of a pole. Then, when those who had been bitten by a snake looked at the bronze snake, they recovered!

¹⁰Then the Israelis traveled to Oboth and ◄camped/set up their tents► there.

¹¹Then they left there, and went to Iye-Abarim, in the desert on the eastern border of Moab.

¹²From there they traveled to the valley where the Zered riverbed is, and camped there.

¹³Then they traveled to the north side of the Arnon River. That area is in the desert next to the land where the Amor people-group lived. The Arnon River is the boundary between Moab and where the Amor people-group lived.

¹⁴That is why in the book called ❛The Book of the Wars of Yahweh❜ it tells about “Waheb town in the Suphah area, and the ravines there; and the Arnon River

¹⁵and the ravines there, which extend as far as Ar village on the border of Moab.”

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.