Sihon, king of Heshbon
26 When we were in Kedemoth desert, I sent a message to Sihon, king of Heshbon. We wanted to agree that we would not fight against each other. 27 I said to him, ‘Please let us go through your country. We will only travel along the road. We will not turn away from the road, to the right side or to the left side. 28 Please sell us food to eat and water to drink. We will pay you with silver coins. We only want to walk through your country. 29 The descendants of Esau who live in Seir let us do this. So did the descendants of Moab who live in Ar. We will go through your country and then we will cross the Jordan River. We will go into the land that the Lord our God is giving to us.’
30 But Sihon, the king of Heshbon, refused to let us travel through his country. He was too proud to agree with us. The Lord our God had caused him to be like that. He wanted to put King Sihon under your power and give his land to you. You still live in his land today.
31 The Lord said to me, ‘Look! I have begun to give King Sihon and his country to you. Now you must begin to fight against him and take his land for yourselves.’
32 Then Sihon and all his army came out to fight a battle against us at Jahaz. 33 The Lord our God put him under our power. We won the battle against him. We killed King Sihon and his sons and all his soldiers. 34 At that time we took all his towns and we gave everything as a gift to the Lord. We killed the men, women and children. We left no one alive. 35 But we kept the farm animals and other valuable things in the cities for ourselves. 36 The Lord our God gave us all their towns. That included Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon valley, the city in the valley and other towns all the way to Gilead. No town was too strong for us to take.
37 But we did not go into the Ammonites' country. We did not go into the Jabbok valley. We did not go near the towns in the hill country. The Lord our God had commanded us not to attack those places.
