Cities for the Levites^(A)

21 The family leaders of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the family leaders of the Israelite tribes. ² At Shiloh in the land of Canaan they said to them, “Through Moses the Lord commanded that we be given cities in which to live and grazing lands for our livestock.” ³ So according to the word of the Lord, out of their inheritance the children of Israel gave the Levites these cities and their grazing lands.

⁴ The lot came out for the clans of the Kohathites, so the Levites who were descendants of Aaron received an allotment of thirteen cities from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. ⁵ The remaining descendants of Kohath received an allotment of ten cities from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

⁶ The descendants of Gershon received an allotment of thirteen cities from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.

⁷ Descendants of Merari by their clans received an allotment of twelve cities from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.

⁸ The children of Israel allotted the Levites these cities and their grazing lands, as the Lord commanded through Moses.

⁹ From the tribes of Judah and Simeon they assigned the following cities with these names. ¹⁰ They were assigned to the descendants of Aaron, to the clans of the Kohathites of the tribe of Levi, for theirs was the first lot.

¹¹ They assigned them Kiriath Arba (Arba was the father of Anak), which is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah, and the grazing lands around it. ¹² (Now they had assigned the city’s fields and its surrounding villages to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his property.)

¹³ So to the descendants of Aaron the priest they assigned Hebron (a refuge city for people who committed manslaughter), Libnah with its pastures, ¹⁴ Jattir, Eshtemoa, ¹⁵ Holon, Debir, ¹⁶ Ain, Juttah, and Beth Shemesh, together with the grazing lands of each: nine cities from these two tribes.

¹⁷ From the tribe of Benjamin they assigned Gibeon, Geba, ¹⁸ Anathoth, and Almon, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

¹⁹ Altogether the descendants of Aaron received thirteen cities and their grazing lands.

²⁰ The rest of the Levites from the clans of the descendants of Kohath received cities allotted from the tribe of Ephraim.

²¹ They assigned them Shechem (a refuge city for people who committed manslaughter) in the hill country of Ephraim, Gezer, ²² Kibzaim, and Beth Horon, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

²³ From the tribe of Dan they assigned Eltekeh, Gibbethon, ²⁴ Aijalon, and Gath Rimmon, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

²⁵ From the half-tribe of Manasseh they assigned Taanach and Gath Rimmon, together with the grazing lands of each: two cities.

²⁶ Altogether the rest of the clans of the descendants of Kohath received ten cities and their grazing lands.

²⁷ From the half-tribe of Manasseh they assigned to the descendants of Gershon (one of the Levite clans): Golan in Bashan (a refuge city for people who committed manslaughter) and Be Eshterah, together with the grazing lands of each: two cities.

²⁸ From the tribe of Issachar they assigned Kishion, Daberath, ²⁹ Jarmuth, and En Gannim, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

³⁰ From the tribe of Asher they assigned Mishal, Abdon, ³¹ Helkath, and Rehob, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

³² From the tribe of Naphtali they assigned Kedesh in Galilee (a refuge city for people who committed manslaughter), Hammoth Dor, and Kartan, together with the grazing lands of each: three cities.

³³ Altogether the Gershonites according to their clans received thirteen cities and their grazing lands.

³⁴ From the tribe of Zebulun they assigned to the descendants of Merari (the remaining Levites): Jokneam, Kartah, ³⁵ Dimnah, and Nahalal, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

³⁶ From the tribe of Reuben they assigned Bezer, Jahaz, ³⁷ Kedemoth, and Mephaath, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities.

³⁸ From the tribe of Gad they assigned Ramoth in Gilead (a refuge city for people who committed manslaughter), Mahanaim, ³⁹ Heshbon, and Jazer, together with the grazing lands of each: four cities in all.

⁴⁰ So twelve cities were allotted for the descendants of Merari according to their clans (the remaining Levite clans).

⁴¹ Altogether the Levites received forty-eight cities and their grazing lands within the possessions of the children of Israel. ⁴² Each of these cities had grazing lands surrounding them. It was this way with all these cities.

⁴³ The Lord gave Israel all the land that He swore to give to their fathers. They took possession of it and lived in it. ⁴⁴ The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He swore to their fathers. Not a man among their enemies stood before them, and the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hands. ⁴⁵ Not a single word of all the good things that the Lord had spoken to the children of Israel failed. They all came to pass.

The Eastern Tribes Return Home

22 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. ² He said to them, “You have done everything that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you and have obeyed me in everything that I have commanded you. ³ You have not left your brothers these many days down to this day, and you have observed the obligations of the commandment of the Lord your God. ⁴ Now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers, as He had said to them. So now, turn and go to your homes, to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan. ⁵ Only carefully obey the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to obey His commandments, to cling to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and soul.”

⁶ Joshua blessed them and sent them off, and they went to their tents. ⁷ Moses had assigned land in Bashan to half the tribe of Manasseh, and to the other half Joshua assigned land among their brothers on the west side of the Jordan. When Joshua sent them also to their homes and blessed them, ⁸ he said, “Return home with great wealth, much livestock, silver, gold, copper, iron, and great quantities of clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies among your brothers.”

⁹ So the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the children of Israel at Shiloh in the land of Canaan to go to the land of Gilead, the land of their possession, according to the word of the Lord through Moses.

¹⁰ The tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh came near the Jordan in the land of Canaan and built a very large altar by the Jordan. ¹¹ The children of Israel heard someone say, “The tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have built an altar by the land of Canaan by the Jordan on the Israelite side.” ¹² When the children of Israel heard this, they assembled the whole congregation of the children of Israel at Shiloh to go up against them in war.

¹³ Then the children of Israel sent Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, to the sons of Reuben, to the sons of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, ¹⁴ and with him ten chiefs, one chief each for each father’s household of every tribe of Israel; and each one of them was the head of his father’s house among the thousands of Israel.

¹⁵ They came to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead and said to them, ¹⁶ “The whole congregation of the Lord says, ‘What is this trespass you have committed against the God of Israel? Today you have turned from following the Lord by building yourselves an altar to rebel against Him! ¹⁷ Is the sin of Peor, from which we have still not purified ourselves even today, not enough for us, which brought a plague upon the congregation of the Lord ¹⁸ that today you have turned away from following the Lord?

“ ‘If today you are rebelling against the Lord, then tomorrow He will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel! ¹⁹ If indeed your own land is unclean, then cross over to the land of the Lord where the tabernacle of the Lord stands and take land among us. Yet do not rebel against the Lord or rebel against us by building an altar other than the altar of the Lord our God. ²⁰ Did not Achan son of Zerah commit a trespass in the things under the ban, and wrath fall on all the congregation of Israel? And that man did not perish alone in his iniquity.’ ”

²¹ Then the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh answered and said to the heads of the Israelite clans, ²² “The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, He knows, and may Israel know—if we have acted in rebellion or disloyalty against the Lord, do not spare us today. ²³ If we have built an altar to turn away from following the Lord, to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings or make peace offerings upon it, may the Lord Himself demand an account.

²⁴ “We did this deed because we were worried that in the future your descendants might say, ‘What have you to do with the Lord God of Israel? ²⁵ The Lord made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, the descendants of Reuben and Gad. You have no share in the Lord!’ In this way your descendants might make our descendants to stop worshipping the Lord.

²⁶ “So we said to each other, ‘Let us build this altar, not for burnt offering or sacrifice, ²⁷ but as a witness for us, for you, and for the generations after us, that we may perform the service of the Lord before Him with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and peace offerings, and in the future your descendants will not be able to say to our descendants, “You have no share in the Lord!” ’

²⁸ “Therefore we said, ‘In the future, if they say this to us or to our descendants, we will say, “Look at the replica of the altar of the Lord that our fathers made, not for burnt offerings or sacrifices, but as a witness between you and us.” ’

²⁹ “God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord by turning from following the Lord today by building an altar for burnt offerings, grain offerings, and sacrifices other than the altar of the Lord God that stands before His tabernacle!”

³⁰ When Phinehas the priest, the leaders of the congregation, and the heads of the Israelite clans who were with him heard what the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh said, it pleased them. ³¹ Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, “Today we know that the Lord is in our midst because you did not violate your obligations to the Lord in this matter. Indeed, you have delivered the children of Israel from the judgment of the Lord.”

³² Then Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest and the leaders returned from meeting the descendants of Reuben and Gad in the land of Gilead to the children of Israel in the land of Canaan. They brought back a report. ³³ This report was good in the eyes of the children of Israel, and the children of Israel blessed God. They decided not to make war against the descendants of Reuben and Gad to ruin the land in which they lived.

³⁴ The descendants of Reuben and Gad named the altar Witness, “For it is a witness between us that the Lord is God.”

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.