⁹ They answered, “Your servants have come from a very distant country. We have heard of the might of the Lord your God and of all he did in Egypt.

²⁴ They replied, “We did it because we—your servants—were clearly told that the Lord your God commanded his servant Moses to give you this entire land and to destroy all the people living in it. So we feared greatly for our lives because of you. That is why we have done this.

¹⁵ “But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of the nations in the land you will enter.

⁹ “I know the Lord has given you this land,” she told them. “We are all afraid of you. Everyone in the land is living in terror. ¹⁰ For we have heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea^[a] when you left Egypt. And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, whose people you completely destroyed.^[b]

¹⁹ I will perform a sign among them. And I will send those who survive to be messengers to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans^[a] and Lydians^[b] (who are famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece,^[c] and to all the lands beyond the sea that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. There they will declare my glory to the nations.

⁵ Then the leaders of the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—called out to the people: “Stand up and praise the Lord your God, for he lives from everlasting to everlasting!” Then they prayed: