Deuteronomy 1:2-19

2It is [only] eleven days’ journey from Horeb (Mount Sinai) by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan’s border; yet Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years before crossing the border and entering Canaan, the promised land].

3In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them,

4after he had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived at Ashtaroth in Edrei.

5Beyond (east of) the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying,

6“The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.

7Turn and resume your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland (the Shephelah), in the Negev (South country) and on the coast of the [Mediterranean] Sea, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

8Look, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord swore (solemnly promised) to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.’

9“I spoke to you at that time, saying, ‘I am not able to bear the burden of you alone.

10The Lord your God has multiplied you, and look, today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven.

11May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, just as He has promised you!

12How can I alone bear the weight and pressure and burden of you and your strife (contention) and complaining?

13Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as heads (leaders) over you.’

14And you answered me, ‘The thing which you have said to do is good.’

15So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and made them leaders over you, commanders of thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and officers (administrators) for your tribes.

16“Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the matters between your brothers [your fellow countrymen], and judge righteously and fairly between a man and his brother, or the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is with him.

17You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear and pay attention to the [cases of the] least [important] as well as the great. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you [to judge], you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’

18I commanded you at that time [regarding] all the things that you should do.

19“Then we set out from Horeb (Sinai), and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.