26 I then sent messengers from the Kedemoth desert to Sihon, Heshbon’s king, with words of peace:
27 "Please let us pass through your land. We promise to stay on the road. We won’t step off it, right or left.
28 Please sell us food for money so we can eat; sell us water for money so we can drink. Let us pass through on foot—
29 just as Esau’s descendants who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me—until we cross the Jordan River into the land that the Lord our God is giving to us."
30 But Sihon, Heshbon’s king, wasn’t willing to let us pass through his land because the Lord your God had made his spirit hard and his heart inflexible so that God could hand him over to you, which is exactly how it happened.
31 The Lord said to me: Look! Right now I’m laying Sihon and his land before you. It’s time to take possession of his land!
32 Sihon and all his forces came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz.