²⁵ The cities they overturned, and on every good piece of land everyone threw a stone until it was covered; every spring of water they stopped up, and every good tree they felled. Only at Kir-hareseth did the stone walls remain until the slingers surrounded and attacked it.^(A)

²⁷ At sunset Joshua commanded, and they took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves; they set large stones against the mouth of the cave that remain to this very day.^(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.’ ”^{(A) 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?’^{(B) 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.”^(C)

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.^{(D) 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.)^(E)

¹⁷ They took Absalom, threw him into a great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones. Meanwhile all the Israelites fled to their homes.^{(A) 18} Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself a pillar that is in the King’s Valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.” He called the pillar by his own name; it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.^(B)

⁴ The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”^{(A) 5} David answered the priest, “Indeed, women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition; the vessels of the young men are holy even when it is a common journey; how much more today will their vessels be holy?”^(B)

¹⁵ And he said to the people, “Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.”

⁵ Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer,^[a] and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.^(A)