Joshua 4-5

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Twelve Stones Set Up at Gilgal

4 When the entire nation had finished crossing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ² “Select twelve men from the people, one from each tribe,^{(A) 3} and command them, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood, carry them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you camp tonight.’ ”^{(B) 4} Then Joshua summoned the twelve men whom he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe. ⁵ Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, ⁶ so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’^{(C) 7} then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”^(D)

⁸ The Israelites did as Joshua commanded. They took up twelve stones out of the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua, carried them over with them to the place where they camped, and laid them down there.^{(E) 9} (Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood, and they are there to this day.)^(F)

¹⁰ The priests who bore the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord had commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people crossed over in haste. ¹¹ As soon as all the people had finished crossing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests crossed over to the front of the people. ¹² The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over armed before the Israelites, as Moses had ordered them.^{(G) 13} About forty thousand armed for war crossed over before the Lord to the plains of Jericho for battle.

¹⁴ On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him, as they had stood in awe of Moses all the days of his life.^(H)

¹⁵ The Lord said to Joshua, ¹⁶ “Command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant to come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁷ Joshua therefore commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁸ When the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the middle of the Jordan and the soles of the priests’ feet touched dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.^(I)

¹⁹ The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.^{(J) 20} Those twelve stones that they had taken out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal,^{(K) 21} saying to the Israelites, “When your children ask their parents in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’^{(L) 22} then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground.’^{(M) 23} For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea,^[a] which he dried up for us until we crossed over,^{(N) 24} so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”^(O)

The New Generation Circumcised

5 ^[b]When all the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan to the west and all the kings of the Canaanites by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted, and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the Israelites.^(P)

² At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites a second time.”^{(Q) 3} So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath-haaraloth.^{[c] 4} This is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the warriors, had died during the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt.^{(R) 5} Although all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people born on the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. ⁶ For the Israelites traveled forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the warriors who came out of Egypt, perished, not having listened to the voice of the Lord. To them the Lord swore that he would not let them see the land that he had sworn to their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.^{(S) 7} So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way.

⁸ When the circumcising of all the nation was done, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. ⁹ The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal^[d] to this day.

The Passover at Gilgal

¹⁰ While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.^{(T) 11} On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and roasted grain. ¹² The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.^(U)

Joshua’s Vision

¹³ Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you one of us or one of our adversaries?”^{(V) 14} He replied, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and he said to him, “What do you command your servant, my lord?”^{(W) 15} The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.^(X)