Joshua 3:9-16

Christian Standard Bible

⁹ Then Joshua told the Israelites, “Come closer and listen to the words of the Lord your God.” ¹⁰ He said, “You will know that the living God is among you^(A) and that he will certainly dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hethites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites^{(B) 11} when the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth^(C) goes ahead of you into the Jordan. ¹² Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe.^{(D) 13} When the feet^[a] of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, come to rest in the Jordan’s water, its water will be cut off. The water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass.”^(E)

¹⁴ When the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the ark of the covenant^(F) ahead of the people. ¹⁵ Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season.^(G) But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan, their feet touched the water at its edge ¹⁶ and the water flowing downstream stood still, rising up in a mass that extended as far as^[b] Adam, a city next to Zarethan. The water flowing downstream into the Sea of the Arabah^(H)—the Dead Sea—was completely cut off, and the people crossed opposite Jericho.