Deuteronomy 9:1-13

New Catholic Bible

Chapter 9

Israel’s Good Fortune. ¹ Hear, O Israel, today you are going to pass over the Jordan to dispossess nations more powerful than you are which have large cities whose walls reach up into the heavens. ² The people are strong and tall, descendants of the Anakim. You know all about them, for you have heard it said, “Who can stand up against the Anakim?”

³ Understand, therefore, that the Lord, your God, is crossing over ahead of you like a devouring fire today. He will destroy them and bring them low before you. Therefore, you will be able to drive them out and annihilate them quickly, just as the Lord has promised you. ⁴ After the Lord, your God, has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “It was because of my righteousness that the Lord brought me in to take possession of this land.” It is because of the wickedness of the nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or the sincerity of your heart that you are going to take possession of their land. Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord, your God, will drive them out before you, fulfilling the promise that he made to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked^[a] people.

The Golden Calf. ⁷ Remember, and never forget, how you angered the Lord, your God, in the wilderness from the day that you left the land of Egypt until the day that you arrived here. You have always been rebellious. ⁸ At Horeb you made the Lord so angry that the Lord was angry enough to destroy you. ⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed up upon the mountain for forty days and forty nights, neither eating food nor drinking water. ¹⁰ The Lord gave me two stone tablets on which the finger of God had written all of the things that the Lord had said to you on the mountain from the midst of the flames on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ At the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, “Arise, hurry down, for your people whom you brought forth out of Egypt has become perverse. They have quickly turned aside from the path that I had directed them to follow and they have made a molten image for themselves.”

¹³ Furthermore, the Lord also said to me, “I have observed this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.