Deuteronomy 9:1-12

“Hear, O Israel! You are crossing the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and more powerful than you, great cities fortified to heaven, a people great and tall, sons of Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ So know today [with confident assurance] that the LORD your God is crossing [the Jordan] before you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, and you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the LORD has promised you. “Do not say in your heart when the LORD your God has driven them out before you, ‘Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD is dispossessing them before you. It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out before you, and to confirm the oath which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “Know [without any doubt], that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked (stubborn, obstinate) people. Remember [with remorse] and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you left the land of Egypt until you arrived in this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. And at Horeb (Sinai) you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you. When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water. The LORD gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were written all the words which the LORD had spoken to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. It came about at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Then the LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made (cast) a molten image for themselves.’