The Lord Commissions Joshua

1 Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses: ² “Moses My servant is dead, so now get up and cross over the Jordan—you and all this people—to the land that I am giving to the children of Israel. ³ I have given you every place that the sole of your foot shall tread, as I said to Moses. ⁴ From the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Mediterranean Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. ⁵ No man will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, I will be with you. I will not abandon you. I will not leave you.

⁶ “Be strong and courageous, for you shall provide the land that I swore to their fathers to give them as an inheritance for this people. ⁷ Be strong and very courageous, in order to act carefully in accordance with all the law that My servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn aside from it to the right or the left, so that you may succeed wherever you go. ⁸ This Book of the Law must not depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may act carefully according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way successful, and you will be wise. ⁹ Have not I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua Takes Command

¹⁰ Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, ¹¹ “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare food, for in three days you will cross the Jordan to go to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’ ”

¹² To the Reubenites, the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said, ¹³ “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: ‘The Lord your God has given you a place for rest and will give this land.’ ¹⁴ Your wives, your children, and your livestock may live in the land that Moses gave you on the east side of the Jordan. But you must cross over with your brothers fully armed, your mighty men of valor, and help them, ¹⁵ until the Lord has given your brothers rest, as He has given you, and they also have possessed the land that the Lord your God is giving to them. Then you may return to your own land and possess what Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the east side of the Jordan where the sun rises.”

¹⁶ They answered Joshua, “All that you command us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. ¹⁷ Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, we will obey you. May the Lord your God be with you, as He was with Moses! ¹⁸ Whoever rebels against your command and disobeys your words, in all that you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”

Rahab and the Spies

2 Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men out from Shittim to spy, saying, “Go see the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and they came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab. They spent the night there.

² The king of Jericho was told, “Israelite men came here tonight to spy out the land.” ³ So the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, “Bring out the men who came to you, who have entered your house, for they came to spy out the whole land.”

⁴ Now the woman had taken the two men and had hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. ⁵ The men went out when it was time to shut the gate at dark. I do not know where the men went. Chase after them quickly, for you can overtake them.” ⁶ Yet she had brought them up to the roof. She hid them in the stalks of flax that she had spread out on the roof. ⁷ So the men chased after them on the road to the Jordan as far as the fords. They shut the gate as soon as the pursuers went out after them.

⁸ Before the spies went to sleep, Rahab went up to them on the roof. ⁹ She said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, for dread from you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land melt in terror before you. ¹⁰ For we heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. ¹¹ Our hearts melted when we heard these things, and no man had any breath in him because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below.

¹² “So now, since I have acted faithfully toward you, please swear to me by the Lord that you will also act faithfully toward my father’s house. Please give me a firm pledge ¹³ that you will spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all whom they own, and that you will deliver our lives from death.”

¹⁴ The men said to her, “Our lives for yours; if you do not report us, then when the Lord gives us the land, we will act faithfully and kindly with you.”

¹⁵ Then Rahab lowered them by a rope through the window, for her home was set into the wall where she lived. ¹⁶ She said to them, “Go to the hill country so that the pursuers do not find you. Hide there three days until the pursuers return. After that, you can go on your way.”

¹⁷ The men said to her, “We will be free from this oath that you have made us swear, ¹⁸ unless, when we come into the land, you tie this red cord to the window through which you let us down. You must bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all who belong to your father’s household into your home. ¹⁹ Anyone who comes out of the doors of your house into the street is responsible for his own blood, and we will be innocent. Yet for anyone who stays with you inside the house, we are responsible for his blood if someone should lay a hand on him. ²⁰ But if you tell about this business of ours, then we will be released from the oath that you have made us swear.”

²¹ She said, “Let it be so, according to your words.”

Then she sent them off, and they departed. Then she tied the red cord in the window.

²² They went and came to the hill country. They stayed there three days, until the pursuers returned. The pursuers had sought them all along the way but had not found them. ²³ So the two men returned. They descended from the hill country. They crossed the river, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that they had discovered. ²⁴ They said to Joshua, “The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands! Indeed, all the inhabitants of the land melt in terror before us.”

Israel Crossing the Jordan

3 In the morning Joshua got up early; then he and all the children of Israel set out from Shittim and came to the Jordan. They stayed there before crossing over. ² After three days the officers went through the camp. ³ They commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the Levite priests carrying it, then you shall set out from where you are and go behind it. ⁴ There must be a distance of two thousand cubits^[a] between you and it. Do not draw closer to it, in order that you may know the way you should go. For you have not passed this way before.”

⁵ Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will perform wondrous deeds among you.”

⁶ Joshua said to the priests, “Pick up the ark of the covenant, and proceed ahead of the people.” So they picked up the ark of the covenant and went in front of the people.

⁷ The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to honor you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. ⁸ You shall command the priests who carry the ark of the covenant, ‘When you come to the bank of the Jordan, stand still in the river.’ ”

⁹ So Joshua said to the children of Israel, “Draw near and hear the words of the Lord your God.” ¹⁰ And Joshua said, “By this you will know that the living God is among you, and that He will thoroughly drive out the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites from before you. ¹¹ See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing before you into the Jordan. ¹² Now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man per tribe. ¹³ When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, touch the water of the Jordan, the water of the Jordan that flows from upstream will be cut off and pile up.”

¹⁴ When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests were carrying the ark of the covenant before the people. ¹⁵ When the carriers of the ark came to the Jordan, the feet of the priests carrying the ark dipped into the edge of the water. (Now the Jordan overflows its banks all the days of the harvest.) ¹⁶ Then the water that flows down from upstream stood still and rose up in a heap very far away at Adam, the city beside Zarethan. The water that flows down toward the Sea of Arabah (the Dead Sea) stopped and was cut off. The people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷ The priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, and all Israel crossed over on dry ground until the entire people completed crossing over the Jordan.

Twelve Memorial Stones

4 When the entire people had completed crossing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ² “Take twelve men from among the people, one man per tribe. ³ Command them: ‘Pick up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the feet of the priests are standing; bring them over with you, and set them in the place you will camp tonight.’ ”

⁴ So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had appointed from among the children of Israel, one man per tribe. ⁵ Then Joshua said to them, “Cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift up a stone upon your shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the children of Israel, ⁶ so that this will be a sign among you. When your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ ⁷ you will answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones will be a memorial for the children of Israel continually.”

⁸ Then the children of Israel did as Joshua commanded and picked up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each of the tribes of the children of Israel, as the Lord had spoken to Joshua. They crossed over with them to the settlement and set them there. ⁹ Joshua also set twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan at the place where the feet of the priests who carried the ark of the covenant were standing. The stones are there to this day.

¹⁰ The priests who were carrying the ark stood in the middle of the Jordan until everything was completed that the Lord had commanded Joshua to say to the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people quickly crossed over. ¹¹ When all the people had finished crossing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests crossed over in the presence of the people. ¹² The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over in battle formation in front of the children of Israel, according to what Moses had said to them. ¹³ About forty thousand battle-ready men crossed over before the Lord for battle on the plains of Jericho.

¹⁴ On that day, the Lord honored Joshua in the sight of all Israel. They feared him as they had feared Moses, all the days of his life.

¹⁵ The Lord spoke to Joshua, ¹⁶ “Command the priests carrying the ark of the testimony: ‘Come up out of the Jordan!’ ”

¹⁷ So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan!”

¹⁸ Then when the priests who were carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the middle of the Jordan and the soles of the priests’ feet touched the dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks as before.

¹⁹ Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped at Gilgal, on the eastern border of Jericho. ²⁰ Joshua set up in Gilgal those twelve stones that they took from the Jordan. ²¹ He said to the children of Israel, “When your children someday ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ²² then you shall explain to your children, ‘Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground!’ ²³ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea when He dried it up before us until we crossed over, ²⁴ so that all the peoples of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, and you would fear the Lord your God always.”

5 When all the kings of the Amorites west of the Jordan and of the Canaanites by the sea to the east heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the children of Israel while they crossed over, their hearts melted, and there was no longer any breath in them because of the children of Israel.

Circumcision and Passover at Gilgal

² At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the children of Israel a second time.” ³ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the children of Israel at the Hill of the Foreskins called Gibeath Haaraloth.

⁴ Now this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: All the males who came out of Egypt who were men of fighting age had died in the wilderness along the way after leaving Egypt. ⁵ All of the people who had come out were circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness along the way after leaving Egypt were not circumcised. ⁶ The children of Israel had traveled forty years in the wilderness until all the people, the men of fighting age who came out of Egypt, died, because they did not obey the Lord. The Lord had sworn not to let them see the land that He had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey. ⁷ Yet He raised up their descendants in their place. These men Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised. They had not been circumcised along the way. ⁸ So when the entire people was completely circumcised, they stayed where they were in the camp until they healed.

⁹ The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the disgrace of Egypt from upon you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal even to this day.

¹⁰ The children of Israel camped in Gilgal and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. ¹¹ The day after the Passover, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened bread, and roasted grain. ¹² The manna stopped the day after they ate from the produce of the land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna. That year they ate what the land of Canaan yielded.

The Fall of Jericho

¹³ Now when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him. In His hand was His drawn sword. Joshua went to Him and said, “Are You for us or for our enemies?”

¹⁴ He said, “Neither, for I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” Then Joshua fell with his face to the ground and worshipped. Then he said, “What does my Lord wish to say to His servant?”

¹⁵ The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” So Joshua did this.

6 Now Jericho was tightly secured before the children of Israel. There was no one leaving or entering.

² The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho, its king, and mighty men of valor into your hand. ³ All the men of fighting age shall march around the city. Circle the city once. Do this for six days. ⁴ Seven priests shall carry seven ram’s horn trumpets before the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. ⁵ When they blow a long blast on the ram’s horn and when you hear the trumpet sound, all the people shall shout a loud battle cry. The walls of the city will fall down, and the people will go up, every man straight ahead.”

⁶ So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant. Seven priests bearing seven ram’s horn trumpets shall be in front of the ark of the Lord.” ⁷ He said to the people, “Advance and march around the city. Let the armed men pass on before the ark of the Lord.”

⁸ So when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests bearing seven ram’s horn trumpets before the Lord advanced and blew their trumpets. The ark of the covenant of the Lord went after them. ⁹ The armed men went before the priests blowing the trumpets, and the rear guard went after the ark while the trumpets were blowing. ¹⁰ Now Joshua had commanded the people, “Do not shout a battle cry, and do not let your voices be heard. Do not let a word come out of your mouths until the time I say to you, ‘Shout the battle cry!’ Then shout.” ¹¹ So he had the ark of the Lord circle the city once. Then they came into the camp and spent the night there.

¹² Then Joshua got up early in the morning, and the priests picked up the ark of the Lord. ¹³ Seven priests bearing seven ram’s horn trumpets before the ark of the Lord moved on, blowing their trumpets continually. The armed men went before them, and the rear guard went after the ark of the Lord while the trumpets were blowing. ¹⁴ The second day they circled the city once, and they returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁵ Then on the seventh day they got up early as dawn was breaking and circled the city in this way seven times. Only on that day did they circle the city seven times. ¹⁶ On the seventh time, the priests blew the trumpets and Joshua said to the people, “Shout the battle cry, for the Lord has given you the city! ¹⁷ The city and all that is in it are dedicated to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute may live, she, and all who are with her in her house, for she hid the messengers we sent. ¹⁸ As for you, keep yourselves from that which is dedicated for destruction, lest you be destroyed. If you take from that which is dedicated for destruction, you will set the Israelite camp for destruction and bring trouble upon it. ¹⁹ All the silver, gold, and bronze and iron articles are set apart for the Lord. They will go into the treasury of the Lord.”

²⁰ So the people shouted, and they blew the trumpets. When the people heard the trumpet sound, they shouted a loud battle cry, and the wall fell down. So the people went up into the city, one man after the other, and they captured it. ²¹ They destroyed all that was in the city: man and woman, young and old, and oxen, sheep, and donkey with the edge of the sword.

²² Yet to the two men who had spied out the land, Joshua said, “Enter the prostitute’s house, and bring out the woman and everyone who belongs to her, as you swore to her.” ²³ So the young men who had been spies entered and brought out Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, everyone who belonged to her, and her whole extended family. They brought them out and placed them outside of the camp of Israel.

²⁴ They burned the city and everything in it with fire. Only the silver, the gold, the bronze and iron articles they gave to the treasury of the house of the Lord. ²⁵ Yet Rahab the prostitute, her father’s family, and everyone who belonged to her, Joshua let live. They live among Israel to this day because she hid the messengers Joshua sent to spy on Jericho.

²⁶ At that time Joshua made them swear, “Cursed before the Lord will be the man who arises and rebuilds this city of Jericho.

²⁷ So the Lord was with Joshua, and he became famous throughout the land.

Joshua’s Charge to the Leaders

23 A long time later, after the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua was old and advanced in years. ² Joshua called for all Israel, their elders, clan heads, judges, and officials, and said to them, “I am old and advanced in years. ³ You have seen all that the Lord your God did to all these peoples before you, for it is the Lord your God who has waged war for you. ⁴ See, I have allotted to you as an inheritance the land of these peoples who remain, along with the land of the peoples whom I defeated, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ⁵ The Lord your God will drive them out and dispossess them from before you, and you will inherit their land, as the Lord your God told you.

⁶ “Now be very strong to observe and enact all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, so that you do not deviate from it to the right or the left. ⁷ Do not assimilate with these peoples remaining among you. Do not invoke the names of their gods, nor swear by, serve, or worship them. ⁸ Instead, cling to the Lord your God, as you have done until today.

⁹ “For the Lord has dispossessed before you great and mighty peoples, and as for you, not a single man has been able to stand against you until today. ¹⁰ One man from among you can make a thousand flee, for it is the Lord your God who wages war for you, as He told you. ¹¹ Now be careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God!

¹² “For if you should turn and cling to the remainder of these peoples who are left with you, and you intermarry and assimilate with them, and they with you, ¹³ know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Now, I am going the way of all the earth. You know in all your hearts and souls that not a single word has failed out of all the good things that the Lord your God has said concerning you. All came true for you. Not a single word among them failed. ¹⁵ So just as every good thing that the Lord your God said to you came to be, even so the Lord can bring every bad thing upon you until He has destroyed you from this good land that the Lord your God gave you. ¹⁶ If you break the covenant of the Lord your God that He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land that He gave you.”

Covenant Renewed at Shechem

24 Joshua called for all the Israelite tribes at Shechem and summoned the elders, clan heads, judges, and officials of Israel. They presented themselves before God.

² Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Long ago your fathers—Terah father of Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates^[a] and served other gods. ³ I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates,^[b] brought him through all the land of Canaan, and gave him many descendants. To him I gave Isaac. ⁴ To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, and to Esau I gave Mount Seir for his inheritance, but Jacob and his descendants went down into Egypt.

⁵ “I sent Moses and Aaron, I struck Egypt down with all I did in their midst, and afterward I brought you out. ⁶ I brought your fathers out of Egypt, then you came to the sea. The Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. ⁷ Your fathers cried out to the Lord, and He placed darkness between you and the Egyptians. He made the sea come upon them and cover them. Your own eyes saw what I did to Egypt, and you lived in the wilderness a long time.

⁸ “I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They waged war against you, but I gave them into your hand so that you might inherit their land, and I destroyed them before you. ⁹ Then Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and waged war against Israel. He called for Balaam son of Beor to curse you, ¹⁰ but I refused to listen to Balaam. Therefore he blessed you still, and I delivered you out of his hand.

¹¹ “You crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The leaders of Jericho, along with the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites, waged war against you, but I gave them into your hand. ¹² I sent the hornet and drove out the two Amorite kings from before you, but not with your sword or your bow. ¹³ I gave you a land for which you did not work, and cities that you did not build. You live in them, and you are eating from the produce of vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.

¹⁴ “Now fear the Lord, and serve Him with sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods your fathers served beyond the River^[c] and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. ¹⁵ If it is displeasing to you to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve, if it should be the gods your fathers served beyond the River^[d] or the gods of the Amorites’ land where you are now living. Yet as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶ The people answered and said, “God forbid that we forsake the Lord and serve other gods! ¹⁷ For it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers out from slavery in the land of Egypt and performed these great signs in our sight and guarded us all the way that we went and among all the peoples through whom we passed. ¹⁸ The Lord drove out before us all the people, even the Amorites, who lived in the land. So we will indeed serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹ Then Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God, and He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. ²⁰ If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn, bring disaster upon you, and finish you off, after having been good to you.”

²¹ The people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!”

²² Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves, that you have chosen the Lord, to serve Him.”

Then they said, “We are witnesses.”

²³ “Now then,” he said, “put away the foreign gods in your midst, and stretch out your hearts to the Lord God of Israel!”

²⁴ The people said to Joshua, “It is the Lord our God we will serve, and His voice that we will obey.”

²⁵ So that day Joshua made a covenant for the people and established regulations and laws for them at Shechem. ²⁶ Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. He took a large stone and set it up under the oak by the sanctuary of the Lord.

²⁷ Joshua said to all the people, “See, this stone will be a witness for us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that He spoke to us. It will be a witness for us, lest you deny your God.”

²⁸ Then Joshua sent the people away, each man to his inheritance.

Joshua’s Death and Burial

²⁹ After these events took place, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten. ³⁰ They buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath Serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash.

³¹ Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the deeds that the Lord had done for Israel.

³² They buried the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought out of Egypt, in Shechem in the part of the field that Jacob bought from the descendants of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver.^[e] It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.

³³ Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him at Gibeah, the town of Phinehas his son, which was in the hill country of Ephraim.