פ (Pe) All your enemies gloated over you. ¹  They sneered and gnashed their teeth; they said, “We have destroyed ²  her! Ha! We have waited a long time for this day. We have lived to see it!” ³ 

Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ¹  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ²  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ³ 

“We can’t,” they said, “until all the flocks are gathered and the stone is rolled off the mouth of the well. Then we water ¹  the sheep.”

We have brought additional money with us to buy food. We do not know who put the money in our sacks!”

They said to Moses, “You speak ¹  to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.”

We remember ¹  the fish we used to eat ²  freely ³  in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

But the men ¹  who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!”

We even saw the Nephilim ¹  there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves ²  and to them.” ³ 

We have overpowered them; ¹  Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon. We have shattered them as far as Nophah, which ²  reaches to Medeba.”

At that time we seized all his cities and put every one of them ¹  under divine judgment, ²  including even the women and children; we left no survivors.

We put all of these under divine judgment ¹  just as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon – every occupied city, ²  including women and children.

Just as we obeyed ¹  Moses, so we will obey you. But ²  may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses!

If you should report what we’ve been up to, ¹  we are not bound by this oath you made us swear.”

They will attack ¹  us until we have lured them from the city, for they will say, ‘They are retreating from us like before.’ We will retreat from them.

This bread of ours was warm when we packed it in our homes the day we started out to meet you, ¹  but now it is dry and hard. ² 

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord: “We have sinned against you. We abandoned our God and worshiped ¹  the Baals.”

They said to him, “Seek a divine oracle for us, ¹  so we can know if we will be successful on our mission.” ² 

But his master said to him, “We should not stop at a foreign city where non-Israelites live. ¹  We will travel on to Gibeah.”

If they say to us, ‘Stay put until we approach you,’ we will stay ¹  right there and not go up to them.

These men were very good to us. They did not insult us, nor did we sustain any loss during the entire time we were together ¹  in the field.