1 After the death of Moses, the Lord’s disciple, God spoke to Moses’ assistant, whose name was Joshua (the son of Nun), and said to him,

² “Now that my disciple is dead, you are the new leader of Israel.^[a] Lead my people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. ³ I say to you what I said to Moses: ‘Wherever you go will be part of the land of Israel— ⁴ all the way from the Negeb Desert in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Euphrates River in the east, including all the land of the Hittites.’ ⁵ No one will be able to oppose you as long as you live, for I will be with you just as I was with Moses; I will not abandon you or fail to help you.

⁶ “Be strong and brave, for you will be a successful leader of my people; and they shall conquer all the land I promised to their ancestors. ⁷ You need only to be strong and courageous and to obey to the letter every law Moses gave you, for if you are careful to obey every one of them, you will be successful in everything you do. ⁸ Constantly remind the people about these laws, and you yourself must think about them every day and every night so that you will be sure to obey all of them. For only then will you succeed. ⁹ Yes, be bold and strong! Banish fear and doubt! For remember, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

^10-11 Then Joshua issued instructions to the leaders of Israel to tell the people to get ready to cross the Jordan River. “In three days we will go across and conquer and live in the land which God has given us!” he told them.

^12-13 Then he summoned the leaders of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh and reminded them of their agreement with Moses: “The Lord your God has given you a homeland here on the east side of the Jordan River,” Moses had told them, ¹⁴ “so your wives and children and cattle may remain here, but your troops, fully armed, must lead the other tribes across the Jordan River to help them conquer their territory on the other side; ¹⁵ stay with them until they complete the conquest. Only then may you settle down here on the east side of the Jordan.”

¹⁶ To this they fully agreed and pledged themselves to obey Joshua as their commander-in-chief.

^17-18 “We will obey you just as we obeyed Moses,” they assured him, “and may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. If anyone, no matter who, rebels against your commands, he shall die. So lead on with courage and strength!”

2 Then Joshua sent two spies from the Israeli camp at Acacia to cross the river and check out the situation on the other side, especially at Jericho. They arrived at an inn operated by a woman named Rahab, who was a prostitute. They were planning to spend the night there, ² but someone informed the king of Jericho that two Israelis who were suspected of being spies had arrived in the city that evening. ³ He dispatched a police squadron to Rahab’s home, demanding that she surrender them.

“They are spies,” he explained. “They have been sent by the Israeli leaders to discover the best way to attack us.”

⁴ But she had hidden them, so she told the officer in charge, “The men were here earlier, but I didn’t know they were spies. ⁵ They left the city at dusk as the city gates were about to close, and I don’t know where they went. If you hurry, you can probably catch up with them!”

⁶ But actually she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them beneath piles of flax that were drying there. ⁷ So the constable and his men went all the way to the Jordan River looking for them; meanwhile, the city gates were kept shut. ⁸ Rahab went up to talk to the men before they retired for the night.

⁹ “I know perfectly well that your God is going to give my country to you,” she told them. “We are all afraid of you; everyone is terrified if the word Israel is even mentioned. ¹⁰ For we have heard how the Lord made a path through the Red Sea for you when you left Egypt! And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, and how you ruined their land and completely destroyed their people. ¹¹ No wonder we are afraid of you! No one has any fight left in him after hearing things like that, for your God is the supreme God of heaven, not just an ordinary god. ^12-13 Now I beg for this one thing: Swear to me by the sacred name of your God that when Jericho is conquered you will let me live, along with my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all their families. This is only fair after the way I have helped you.”

¹⁴ The men agreed. “If you won’t betray us, we’ll see to it that you and your family aren’t harmed,” they promised. ¹⁵ “We’ll defend you with our lives.” Then, since her house was on top of the city wall, she let them down by a rope from a window.

¹⁶ “Escape to the mountains,” she told them. “Hide there for three days until the men who are searching for you have returned; then go on your way.”

^17-18 But before they left, the men had said to her, “We cannot be responsible for what happens to you unless this rope is hanging from this window and unless all your relatives—your father, mother, brothers, and anyone else—are here inside the house. ¹⁹ If they go out into the street, we assume no responsibility whatsoever; but we swear that no one inside this house will be killed or injured. ²⁰ However, if you betray us, then this oath will no longer bind us in any way.”

²¹ “I accept your terms,” she replied. And she left the scarlet rope hanging from the window.

²² The spies went up into the mountains and stayed there three days, until the men who were chasing them had returned to the city after searching everywhere along the road without success. ²³ Then the two spies came down from the mountains and crossed the river and reported to Joshua all that had happened to them.

²⁴ “The Lord will certainly give us the entire land,” they said, “for all the people over there are scared to death of us.”

3 Early the next morning Joshua and all the people of Israel left Acacia and arrived that evening at the banks of the Jordan River, where they camped for a few days before crossing.

^2-4 On the third day officers went through the camp giving these instructions: “When you see the priests carrying the Ark of God,^[b] follow them. You have never before been where we are going now, so they will guide you. However, stay about a half mile behind, with a clear space between you and the Ark; be sure that you don’t get any closer.”

⁵ Then Joshua told the people to purify themselves. “For tomorrow,” he said, “the Lord will do a great miracle.”

⁶ In the morning Joshua ordered the priests, “Take up the Ark and lead us across the river!” And so they started out.

⁷ “Today,” the Lord told Joshua, “I will give you great honor, so that all Israel will know that I am with you just as I was with Moses. ⁸ Instruct the priests who are carrying the Ark to stop at the edge of the river.”

⁹ Then Joshua summoned all the people and told them, “Come and listen to what the Lord your God has said. ¹⁰ Today you are going to know for sure that the living God is among you and that he will, without fail, drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites—all the people who now live in the land you will soon occupy. ¹¹ Think of it! The Ark of God, who is Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the river!

¹² “Now select twelve men, one from each tribe, for a special task.^{[c] 13-14} When the priests who are carrying the Ark touch the water with their feet, the river will stop flowing as though held back by a dam, and will pile up as though against an invisible wall!” Now it was the harvest season and the Jordan was overflowing all its banks; but as the people set out to cross the river and as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, ^15-16 suddenly, far up the river at the city of Adam, near Zarethan, the water began piling up as though against a dam! And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was empty. Then all the people crossed at a spot where the river was close to the city of Jericho, ¹⁷ and the priests who were carrying the Ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan and waited as all the people passed by.

4 When all the people were safely across, the Lord said to Joshua, ^2-3 “Tell the twelve men chosen for a special task, one from each tribe, each to take a stone from where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan, and to carry them out and pile them up as a monument at the place where you camp tonight.”

⁴ So Joshua summoned the twelve men ⁵ and told them, “Go out into the middle of the Jordan where the Ark is. Each of you is to carry out a stone on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes. ⁶ We will use them to build a monument so that in the future, when your children ask, ‘What is this monument for?’ ⁷ you can tell them, ‘It is to remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of God went across!’ The monument will be a permanent reminder to the people of Israel of this amazing miracle.”

⁸ So the men did as Joshua told them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River—one for each tribe, just as the Lord had commanded Joshua. They carried them to the place where they were camped for the night and constructed a monument there. ⁹ Joshua also built another monument of twelve stones in the middle of the river, at the place where the priests were standing; and it is there to this day. ¹⁰ The priests who were carrying the Ark stood in the middle of the river until all these instructions of the Lord, which had been given to Joshua by Moses, had been carried out. Meanwhile, the people had hurried across the riverbed, ¹¹ and when everyone was over, the people watched the priests carry the Ark up out of the riverbed.

^12-13 The troops of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh—fully armed as Moses had instructed, and forty thousand strong—led the other tribes of the Lord’s army across to the plains of Jericho.

¹⁴ It was a tremendous day for Joshua! The Lord made him great in the eyes of all the people of Israel, and they revered him as much as they had Moses and respected him deeply all the rest of his life. ^15-16 For it was Joshua who, at the Lord’s command, issued the orders to the priests carrying the Ark.

“Come up from the riverbed,” the Lord now told him to command them.

¹⁷ So Joshua issued the order. ¹⁸ And as soon as the priests came out, the water poured down again as usual and overflowed the banks of the river as before! ¹⁹ This miracle occurred on the 25th of March.^[d] That day the entire nation crossed the Jordan River and camped in Gilgal at the eastern edge of the city of Jericho; ²⁰ and there the twelve stones from the Jordan were piled up as a monument.

²¹ Then Joshua explained again the purpose of the stones: “In the future,” he said, “when your children ask you why these stones are here and what they mean, ²² you are to tell them that these stones are a reminder of this amazing miracle—that the nation of Israel crossed the Jordan River on dry ground! ²³ Tell them how the Lord our God dried up the river right before our eyes and then kept it dry until we were all across! It is the same thing the Lord did forty years ago^[e] at the Red Sea! ²⁴ He did this so that all the nations of the earth will realize that Jehovah is the mighty God, and so that all of you will worship him forever.”

5 When the nations west of the Jordan River—the Amorites and Canaanites who lived along the Mediterranean coast—heard that the Lord had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, their courage melted away completely and they were paralyzed with fear.

^2-3 The Lord then told Joshua to set aside a day to circumcise the entire male population of Israel. (It was the second time in Israel’s history that this was done.) The Lord instructed them to manufacture flint knives for this purpose. The place where the circumcision rite took place was named “The Hill of the Foreskins.” ^4-5 The reason for this second circumcision ceremony was that although when Israel left Egypt all of the men who had been old enough to bear arms had been circumcised, that entire generation had died during the years in the wilderness, and none of the boys born since that time had been circumcised. ⁶ For the nation of Israel had traveled back and forth across the wilderness for forty years until all the men who had been old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt were dead; they had not obeyed the Lord, and he vowed that he wouldn’t let them enter the land he had promised to Israel—a land that “flowed with milk and honey.” ⁷ So now Joshua circumcised their children—the men who had grown up to take their fathers’ places.

^8-9 And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have ended your shame of not being circumcised.”^[f] So the place where this was done was called Gilgal (meaning, “to end”), and is still called that today. After the ceremony the entire nation rested in camp until the raw flesh of their wounds had been healed.

¹⁰ While they were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they celebrated the Passover during the evening of April first.^{[g] 11-12} The next day they began to eat from the gardens and grain fields which they invaded, and they made unleavened bread. The following day no manna fell, and it was never seen again! So from that time on they lived on the crops of Canaan.

¹³ As Joshua was sizing up the city of Jericho, a man appeared nearby with a drawn sword. Joshua strode over to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?”

¹⁴ “I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Lord’s army,” he replied.

Joshua fell to the ground before him and worshiped him and said, “Give me your commands.”

¹⁵ “Take off your shoes,” the Commander told him, “for this is holy ground.” And Joshua did.

6 The gates of Jericho were kept tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelis; no one was allowed to go in or out.

² But the Lord said to Joshua, “Jericho and its king and all its mighty warriors are already defeated, for I have given them to you! ^3-4 Your entire army is to walk around the city once a day for six days, followed by seven priests walking ahead of the Ark, each carrying a trumpet made from a ram’s horn. On the seventh day you are to walk around the city seven times, with the priests blowing their trumpets. ⁵ Then, when they give one long, loud blast, all the people are to give a mighty shout, and the walls of the city will fall down; then move in upon the city from every direction.”

^6-9 So Joshua summoned the priests and gave them their instructions: the armed men would lead the procession, followed by seven priests blowing continually on their trumpets. Behind them would come the priests carrying the Ark, followed by a rear guard.

¹⁰ “Let there be complete silence except for the trumpets,” Joshua commanded. “Not a single word from any of you until I tell you to shout; then shout!”

¹¹ The Ark was carried around the city once that day, after which everyone returned to the camp again and spent the night there. ^12-14 At dawn the next morning they went around again and returned again to the camp. They followed this pattern for six days.

¹⁵ At dawn of the seventh day they started out again, but this time they went around the city not once, but seven times. ¹⁶ The seventh time, as the priests blew a long, loud trumpet blast, Joshua yelled to the people, “Shout! The Lord has given us the city!”

¹⁷ (He had told them previously, “Kill everyone except Rahab the prostitute and anyone in her house, for she protected our spies. ¹⁸ Don’t take any loot, for everything is to be destroyed. If it isn’t, disaster will fall upon the entire nation of Israel. ¹⁹ But all the silver and gold and the utensils of bronze and iron will be dedicated to the Lord and must be brought into his treasury.”)

²⁰ So when the people heard the trumpet blast, they shouted as loud as they could. And suddenly the walls of Jericho crumbled and fell before them, and the people of Israel poured into the city from every side and captured it! ²¹ They destroyed everything in it—men and women, young and old; oxen; sheep; donkeys—everything.

²² Meanwhile Joshua had said to the two spies, “Keep your promise. Go and rescue the prostitute and everyone with her.”

²³ The young men found her and rescued her, along with her father, mother, brothers, and other relatives who were with her. Arrangements were made for them to live outside the camp of Israel. ²⁴ Then the Israelis burned the city and everything in it except that the silver and gold and the bronze and iron utensils were kept for the Lord’s treasury. ²⁵ Thus Joshua saved Rahab the prostitute and her relatives who were with her in the house, and they still live among the Israelites because she hid the spies sent to Jericho by Joshua.

²⁶ Then Joshua declared a terrible curse upon anyone who might rebuild Jericho, warning that when the foundation was laid, the builder’s oldest son would die, and when the gates were set up, his youngest son would die.^[h]

²⁷ So the Lord was with Joshua, and his name became famous everywhere.

23 Long after this, when the Lord had given success to the people of Israel against their enemies and when Joshua was very old, ² he called for the leaders of Israel—the elders, judges, and officers—and said to them, “I am an old man now, ³ and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done for you during my lifetime. He has fought for you against your enemies and has given you their land. ^4-5 And I have divided to you the land of the nations yet unconquered as well as the land of those you have already destroyed. All the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea shall be yours, for the Lord your God will drive out all the people living there now, and you will live there instead, just as he has promised you.

⁶ “But be very sure to follow all the instructions written in the book of the laws of Moses; do not deviate from them the least little bit. ⁷ Be sure that you do not mix with the heathen people still remaining in the land; do not even mention the names of their gods, much less swear by them or worship them. ⁸ But follow the Lord your God just as you have until now. ⁹ He has driven out great, strong nations from before you, and no one has been able to defeat you. ¹⁰ Each one of you has put to flight a thousand of the enemy, for the Lord your God fights for you, just as he has promised. ¹¹ So be very careful to keep on loving him.

¹² “If you don’t, and if you begin to intermarry with the nations around you, ¹³ then know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no longer chase those nations from your land. Instead, they will be a snare and a trap to you, a pain in your side and a thorn in your eyes, and you will disappear from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Soon I will be going the way of all the earth—I am going to die.

“You know very well that God’s promises to you have all come true. ^15-16 But as certainly as the Lord has given you the good things he promised, just as certainly he will bring evil upon you if you disobey him. For if you worship other gods, he will completely wipe you out from this good land that the Lord has given you. His anger will rise hot against you, and you will quickly perish.”

24 Then Joshua summoned all the people of Israel to him at Shechem, along with their leaders—the elders, officers, and judges. So they came and presented themselves before God.

² Then Joshua addressed them as follows: “The Lord God of Israel says, ‘Your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived east of the Euphrates River; and they worshiped other gods. ³ But I took your father Abraham from that land across the river and led him into the land of Canaan and gave him many descendants through Isaac, his son. ⁴ Isaac’s children, whom I gave him, were Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the area around Mount Seir while Jacob and his children went into Egypt.

⁵ “‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron to bring terrible plagues upon Egypt; and afterwards I brought my people out as free men. ⁶ But when they arrived at the Red Sea, the Egyptians chased after them with chariots and cavalry. ⁷ Then Israel cried out to me and I put darkness between them and the Egyptians; and I brought the sea crashing in upon the Egyptians, drowning them. You saw what I did. Then Israel lived in the wilderness for many years.

⁸ “‘Finally I brought you into the land of the Amorites on the other side of the Jordan; and they fought against you, but I destroyed them and gave you their land. ⁹ Then King Balak of Moab started a war against Israel, and he asked Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse you. ¹⁰ But I wouldn’t listen to him. Instead I made him bless you; and so I delivered Israel from him.

¹¹ “‘Then you crossed the Jordan River and came to Jericho. The men of Jericho fought against you, and so did many others—the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Each in turn fought against you, but I destroyed them all. ¹² And I sent hornets ahead of you to drive out the two kings of the Amorites and their people. It was not your swords or bows that brought you victory! ¹³ I gave you land you had not worked for and cities you did not build—these cities where you are now living. I gave you vineyards and olive groves for food, though you did not plant them.’

¹⁴ “So revere Jehovah and serve him in sincerity and truth. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Worship the Lord alone. ¹⁵ But if you are unwilling to obey the Lord, then decide today whom you will obey. Will it be the gods of your ancestors beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites here in this land? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶ And the people replied, “We would never forsake the Lord and worship other gods! ¹⁷ For the Lord our God is the one who rescued our fathers from their slavery in the land of Egypt. He is the God who did mighty miracles before the eyes of Israel, as we traveled through the wilderness, and preserved us from our enemies when we passed through their land. ¹⁸ It was the Lord who drove out the Amorites and the other nations living here in the land. Yes, we choose the Lord, for he alone is our God.”

¹⁹ But Joshua replied to the people, “You can’t worship the Lord God, for he is holy and jealous; he will not forgive your rebellion and sins. ²⁰ If you forsake him and worship other gods, he will turn upon you and destroy you, even though he has taken care of you for such a long time.”

²¹ But the people answered, “We choose the Lord!”

²² “You have heard yourselves say it,” Joshua said. “You have chosen to obey the Lord.”

“Yes,” they replied, “we are witnesses.”

²³ “All right,” he said, “then you must destroy all the idols you now own, and you must obey the Lord God of Israel.”

²⁴ The people replied to Joshua, “Yes, we will worship and obey the Lord alone.”

²⁵ So Joshua made a covenant with them that day at Shechem, committing them to a permanent and binding contract between themselves and God. ²⁶ Joshua recorded the people’s reply in the book of the laws of God and took a huge stone as a reminder and rolled it beneath the oak tree that was beside the Tabernacle.

²⁷ Then Joshua said to all the people, “This stone has heard everything the Lord said, so it will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word.”

²⁸ Then Joshua sent the people away to their own sections of the country.

²⁹ Soon after this he died at the age of 110. ³⁰ He was buried on his own estate at Timnath-serah, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north side of the mountains of Gaash.

³¹ Israel obeyed the Lord throughout the lifetimes of Joshua and the other old men who had personally witnessed the amazing deeds the Lord had done for Israel.

³² The bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel had brought along when they left Egypt, were buried in Shechem, in the parcel of ground Jacob had bought^[a] from the sons of Hamor. (The land was located in the territory assigned to the tribes of Joseph.)

³³ Eleazar, the son of Aaron, also died; he was buried in the hill country of Ephraim, at Gibeah, the city that had been given to his son Phinehas.