7. The Lord your God has blessed everything you have done. He has protected you while you traveled through this large desert. The Lord your God has been with you for these 40 years. You have had everything you needed.
8. So we passed by our relatives, the people of Esau who lived in Edom. We turned off the Jordan Valley road. It comes from the towns of Elath and Ezion Geber. And we traveled along the desert road of Moab.
9. Then the Lord said to me, “Don’t bother the people of Moab. Don’t go to war against them. I am not giving you any of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot.”
10. (The Emites lived in Ar before. They were strong people, and there were many of them. They were very tall, like the Anakites.
11. The Emites were thought to be Rephaites, like the Anakites. But the Moabite people called them Emites.
12. The Horites also lived in Edom before. But the people of Esau forced them out. They destroyed the Horites and took their place. That is also what Israel did in the land the Lord gave them as their own.)
13. And the Lord said to me, “Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.” So we crossed the valley.
14. It had been 38 years since we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, all the fighting men from that time had died. This is what the Lord had promised would happen.
15. The Lord had continued to destroy them until they were all gone from the camp.
16. Now the last of those fighting men had died.
17. Then the Lord said to me,
18. “Today you must go by Ar, on the border of Moab.
19. When you come near the people of Ammon, don’t bother them. Don’t go to war against them. I am not giving you their land. I have given that land to the descendants of Lot.”
20. (That land was also thought to be a land of Rephaites. Those people used to live there. But the Ammonites called them Zamzummites.