This is not a nice parsha. 

It tells the story of how, with God urging them on, the Children of Israel fought the people of Sihon (in modern day Jordan) and killed everybody.  All that was left were the animals, which the Israelites kept as booty.

Next, they fought Og, king of Bashan (which is in modern Syria), and again killed everybody, keeping the cattle as plunder.  Interestingly, Og himself survived.  He must have been a giant because Torah tells us his bed was made of iron and was thirteen feet long and six feet wide!

The land they had just conquered was divvied up among the Reubenites, the Gadites, Menashe and Gilead.  But God warned that they still had to fight with the rest of the Israelites to gain control of what is now Israel proper.

Don’t be afraid, God tells Joshua.  For God wages war for you.

Food for Thought:

Why would God tell Moses  to kill the women and children of their enemies?