Beginning

The Conquest of the Promised Land^[a]

Chapter 1

Assurance of Divine Aid. ¹ After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, saying, ^2 [b]“Moses my servant is dead. Rise, therefore, and cross over this Jordan, you and all of this people, to the land that I am giving to them, the people of Israel. ³ Every place that you set your feet down, I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the Desert of Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all of the land of the Hittites, and as far as the great sea on the west. ⁵ No one will be able to withstand you, all the days of your life. I will treat you just as I treated Moses, for I will never forsake nor abandon you. ⁶ So be strong and take courage, for you will lead these people to inherit the land that I promised to their forefathers to give them. ⁷ Only be strong and take courage. Be careful to observe the entire law that my servant Moses gave to you. Do not turn away from it to the right or to the left, so that you might prosper wherever you go. ⁸ Do not let this book of the law be absent from your mouth; meditate upon it day and night, so that you might carefully observe everything that is written in it. Then you will prosper and be successful. ⁹ I have given you a command. Be strong and brave, do not be afraid nor dismayed. I, the Lord, your God, will be with you wherever you go.”

¹⁰ The Tribes beyond the Jordan. So Joshua gave a command to the leaders of the people saying, ¹¹ “Pass through the camp and give orders to the people saying, ‘Prepare three days’ worth of provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are going to cross over this Jordan in order to take possession of the land that the Lord, your God, has given to you as an inheritance.’ ” ¹² Joshua then said to the Reubenites and the Gadites and to half of the tribe of Manasseh,^{[c] 13} “Remem-ber what Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord, your God, has given you a place of rest,^[d] he is giving you this land.’ ¹⁴ Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock are to remain on the land that Moses gave you on the far side of the Jordan, but all of your brave warriors will pass over armed, marching before your brethren to help them. ¹⁵ You shall remain there until the Lord gives rest to your brethren as well, and they too take possession of the land that the Lord, your God, has given them. Then you will come back to the land of your inheritance and take possession of it, the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the east of the Jordan, in the direction of the sunrise.” ¹⁶ They answered Joshua saying, “We will do whatever you command us to do, and we will go wherever you send us. ¹⁷ We will obey you just as we obeyed Moses in everything. May the Lord, your God, be with you just as he was with Moses. ¹⁸ Whoever rebels against your commands and does not obey whatever you command them to do will be put to death. Only be strong and brave.”

Chapter 2^[e]

Rahab Saves the Spies.^{[f] 1} Joshua, the son of Nun, secretly dispatched two spies from Shittim.^[g] He told them, “Go reconnoiter the land, especially Jericho.” They went and they came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab, where they stayed. ² The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some Israelites came here tonight to spy throughout the land.” ³ The king of Jericho sent a message to Rahab saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you and entered your house, for they are here to spy through the whole countryside.” ⁴ But the woman had taken the two spies and she had hidden them. She said, “The men came to me, but I did not know where they were coming from. ⁵ When it was time to close the gates at dusk, they left. I do not know where they went. Chase after the men quickly, you may catch up with them.” ⁶ She had really taken them up on the roof and hidden them under stalks of flax^[h] that she had laid out on the roof. ⁷ The men set out after them on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan. The gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out after them.

⁸ Before they went to sleep, she came up on the roof ⁹ and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you this land. We are terrified and all the inhabitants of the land are trembling at your approach. ¹⁰ We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came up out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, on the other side of the Jordan, how you annihilated them. ¹¹ When we heard about this, our hearts grew faint and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord, your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth below. ¹² Now, I beg you, swear to the Lord that since I showed you kindness, you will also show kindness to my father’s household. Give me a pledge of your fidelity. ¹³ Spare my father and my mother, my brothers and my sisters, and all their households, saving us from sure death.” ¹⁴ The men answered her, “Our lives for your lives. If you do not inform on what we are doing, then we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord has given us the land.”

¹⁵ She let them down by a rope through the window, for the house in which she lived was built upon the city wall. ¹⁶ She said to them, “Go into the hills so that the pursuers will not find you. Hide there for three days until the pursuers shall have returned here. Then you can go on your way.” ¹⁷ The men said to her, “We will not be bound to the promise that you made us swear ¹⁸ unless, when we enter the land, you have a scarlet cord tied to the window from which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father, and your mother, and your brothers, and all of your father’s household into your house. ¹⁹ Whoever goes outside of the doors of your house will be responsible for his own death, we will not be at fault. But whoever is in the house with you, it will be our responsibility if anyone lays a hand on him. ²⁰ However, if you inform on what we are doing, then we will not be bound to the promise that you made us swear.” ²¹ She said, “Let it be as you have said.” She sent them away, and they departed. She then tied a scarlet cord to the window.

²² The Spies Report to Joshua. They left, and went into the hills where they remained for three days until the pursuers had returned. The pursuers had searched all along that way, but had not found them. ^23 [i]The two men then went back home. They came down from the hills and forded the river, coming to Joshua, the son of Nun. They told him everything that had happened to them. ²⁴ They said to Joshua, “Surely the Lord has delivered the entire land into our hands, for all of the people in the land are overcome with fear of us.”

Chapter 3

Instructions before the Crossing. ¹ Joshua and all of the Israelites rose early the next morning and set out for Shittim, arriving at the Jordan where they camped before they crossed over it. ² Three days later the leaders of the people passed through the camp ³ giving orders to the people saying, “When you see the priests and Levites carrying the Ark of the Lord, your God, set out from where you are and follow after it. ⁴ Maintain a distance of about two thousand cubits^[j] between it and yourselves; do not approach it too closely. Thus you will know the way you are to go, for you have never passed this way before.” ⁵ Joshua said to the priests, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will perform wondrous deeds in your midst.”^{[k] 6} Joshua also said to the priests, “Pick up the Ark of the Covenant and pass on in front of the people.” So they picked up the Ark of the Covenant and went on ahead of the people.

⁷ The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all of Israel, so that they may know that I will treat you the same way that I treated Moses. ⁸ Say to the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant: ‘Approach the edge of the water and stand in the Jordan.’ ” ⁹ Joshua instructed the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord, your God.” ¹⁰ Joshua continued, “This is how you will know that there is a living God among you who will drive out the Canaanites,^[l] the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites from before you. ¹¹ Behold, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth will pass before you into the Jordan. ¹² Choose twelve men from out of the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe. ^13 [m]As soon as the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, set their feet down in the water, the waters of the Jordan will stop flowing downstream and will mount up in a heap.”

¹⁴ Crossing over the Jordan. When the people broke camp to cross over the Jordan, the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant went on ahead of them. ¹⁵ Now the Jordan was at its flood stage during the entire harvest season, but as soon as the priests carrying the Ark stepped into the Jordan, ¹⁶ the waters from upstream stopped flowing. They stood up in a mound quite a distance away, at a town called Adam, near Zarethan. The waters that were flowing downstream to the Arabah (the Salt Sea) disappeared entirely, so the people were able to cross over the Jordan. ¹⁷ The priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord were standing on dry ground right in the middle of the Jordan. All of the Israelites passed over on dry ground until the entire people had crossed over the Jordan.

Chapter 4

The Twelve Memorial Stones. ¹ When the entire people had passed over the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, ² “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each of the tribes, ³ and tell them to take twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan where the priests had been standing, and to carry them over with you, depositing them at the place where you will be camping this evening.”

⁴ So Joshua called the twelve men together whom the Israelites had chosen, one man from each tribe, ⁵ and Joshua said to them, “Cross over in front of the Ark of the Lord, your God, into the middle of the Jordan and have each man place a rock on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites. ^6 [n]These will serve as a reminder for you when, in the future, your children ask, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’ ⁷ you will answer them, ‘The waters of the Jordan stopped flowing before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan ceased to flow.’ These stones will be a memorial to the Israelites forever.”

⁸ The Israelites did just what Joshua had commanded them to do. They picked up twelve stones from the Jordan’s riverbed, just as the Lord had instructed Joshua to do, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, and they brought them out to the place where they were camping that night and they laid them down there. ⁹ Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the Jordan’s riverbed, where the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant had been standing. They are still there today.

¹⁰ Now the priests who were carrying the Ark stood in the middle of the Jordan until everything that the Lord had directed Joshua to tell the people had been done, the things that Moses had ordered Joshua to do. The people hurried over, ¹¹ and when all the people had completed the crossing, the Ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests crossed over in front of the people. ¹² The men of Reuben, the men of Gad, and the men of one of the halves of the tribe of Manasseh passed in front of the Israelites, clad in battle gear, as Moses had instructed them to do. ¹³ About forty thousand men clad in battle gear passed over before the Lord into the plains of Jericho to do battle. ¹⁴ That day the Lord exalted Joshua before all of Israel. They revered him as long as he lived, even as they had revered Moses.

¹⁵ The Lord then said to Joshua, ¹⁶ “Tell the priests who are carrying the Ark of Testimony^[o] to come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁷ So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁸ So the priests, carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, came up out of the Jordan. As soon as the priests’ feet touched dry land, the waters of the Jordan returned back to their place, flowing at flood stage as they had before.

^19 [p]The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month,^[q] and they camped at Gilgal to the east of Jericho. ²⁰ Joshua erected the twelve stones that had been taken out of the Jordan at Gilgal. ²¹ He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’ ²² tell your children, ‘Israel crossed over the Jordan on dry land.’ ²³ The Lord, your God, dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you could cross over, just as the Lord, your God, had dried up the Red Sea before us until we had crossed over it. ²⁴ He did this so that everyone upon the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and so that you might always fear the Lord, your God.”