Book of Joshua

And now, the Lord your God gave rest to your brothers, as he had told them. And now, they settled and entered into your houses and into your dwellings, in the land which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the other side of the Jordan. But only be careful to observe strictly the commandment and the law which he commanded you, as you are to observe them—Moses, the servant of the Lord—that you may love the Lord our God, and walk in all his ways, and keep his commandment, and serve him, and worship him with all your heart and with all your soul. And Joshua blessed them and dismissed them, and they entered into their houses. And to half the tribe of Manasseh, Moses gave them land in Bashan; and to the other half, Joshua gave them land with their brothers on the other side of the Jordan, toward the sea. And when Joshua dismissed them into their houses, he blessed them and said to them:

And they came with much wealth into their houses, and with many cattle, much gold and silver, and bronze and iron, and many garments; they shared with their brothers according to their custom. And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh from the children of Israel departed and came from Shiloh, from the land of Canaan, to go into the land of Gilead, into their territory and into their inheritance [which had been allotted to them] by the command of the Lord through the hand of Moses. And they arrived in Gilead of the Jordan, in the land of Canaan; and the children of Gad and the children of Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh pitched a tent there, a great tent by the Jordan, a tent that was wondrous. And the children of Israel heard that the children of Gad and the children of Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh had pitched a tent in the territory of the land of Canaan, by Gilead of the Jordan, on the border of the children of Israel.

And the children of Israel heard, and all the children of Israel gathered together in Shiloh, that they might go up and fight against them. And the children of Israel sent to the children of Reuben and to the children of Gad and to the half-tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead, Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, and ten of the elders with him, and one elder from each of the houses of their fathers from every tribe of Israel, the elders of the houses of their fathers, the judges who were for Israel. And they arrived at the children of Gad and at the children of Reuben and at the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, and they told them and said to them: Thus say all the eyes of the Lord: What is this sin that you have sinned before the God of Israel, that you should today abandon the worship of the Lord and build for yourselves an altar, and that you should today profane the Lord?

Did you not forget the sin of Peor, from which we have not cleansed ourselves until this day? And it became a plague upon the vision of the Lord. And now you have abandoned the tabernacle of the Lord; and as you have today hidden yourselves from the Lord, a plague will come upon all Israel. And now, if you take the land of Gad, the enemy, into the land of Gad of the Lord, where you dwell, there is the book of the Lord; and inherit with us, and do not hide from the Lord, and do not abandon the Lord, for we have set up the altar of the face from the altar of the Lord, our God. Achan, son of Zara, sinned and transgressed, and took from the forbidden thing; and upon all the vision of Israel there was a curse, while only he sinned; only he died for his sin.

And the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh answered, and they said to the messengers of Israel, saying: The Lord, He is God and Lord, and He is the God of gods; the Lord knows, and for Israel also He knows, that it was not for the sake of deceit or falsehood that we acted before the Lord; and if not, would He have saved us today? And if we have built an altar for ourselves, it is to worship the Lord our God, and to offer upon it a sacrifice of offering; and if we make upon it a sacrifice of salvation, it is the Lord alone who will judge us. If it were not for the fear of the Lord that we have done this, while we say that they should not say, "The land of your children for our children—what is it to you with the Lord God of Israel?

Because the Lord set up and established a boundary between you and us, for the sons of Reuben and for the sons of Gad and for half the tribe of Manasseh, [for the Jordan], and you gave a portion with the Lord, and they will inherit, your children having been estranged from our children (as they drove them out) from the worship of the Lord. And we said, “Shall we do thus? And shall we build this altar, not by means of offering, and not by means of sacrifice?” But rather, let this be a witness between us and between you, and between our children after us, that they may worship the worship of the Lord before Him, with your offering and with the sacrifice of your salvation, and your children shall not say to our children, “You have taken a portion with the Lord.” And we said, “Where then did it happen that after this they said to us, ‘You have taken,’ or to our children, ‘Behold, see the likeness of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made, not by means of offering and not by means of sacrifice, but rather let it be a witness between us and between you’?

It is for us until we leave the offering to the Lord in those days. Now, as we approach the Lord and as we set for ourselves an altar for the sacrifice and for the peace offering and for the offering of salvation, without within the altar of the Lord our God [before his tablets]. And when Phinehas the priest and all the messengers of the covenant and the princes of Israel who were with him heard the word that the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh spoke to them, Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, said to the sons of Reuben and to the sons of Gad and to half the tribe of Manasseh: "Now we know that the Lord is with us, because you have sinned before the Lord this sin, and because I have saved Israel from his hand, from the hand of the Lord.

And Phinehas, son of Eleazar, and the angels went with the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and from half the tribe of Manasseh from Gilead into the land of Canaan to the children of Israel, and they told them. And they recounted this matter to the children of Israel. And when they told it to the children of Israel, they blessed the God of the children of Israel and said, "Let us go up now to them to fight them and to destroy the land of the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and of half the tribe of Manasseh." And they encamped over against it. And Joshua named that altar the altar of Reuben and of Gad and of half the tribe of Manasseh, and they said, "For 'Shem' (name) is the midst of them, as the Lord is their God." Joshua 23 23 And after that, after many days, after the Lord God of Israel had given them rest from all their enemies who surrounded them, Joshua grew old and his days passed.

And he summoned all the children of Israel, their leaders, their angels, their scribes, and their judges, and said to them, “Behold, I have grown old, and my days have passed. And you have seen all that the Lord our God has done to the peoples who were before our face, how the Lord our God fought for us. And behold, you have seen that the nations that remained within your borders, from this side of your portion and from beyond the Jordan, all the nations of the east, and from the great sea, and your border [to the west of the sun]. And the Lord your God will destroy them for you from before your face until they are annihilated and the beasts of the field prevail over them until they destroy them, and their kings from before you, and you will inherit their land, as the Lord our God told us.

And he exhorted them greatly, saying, "Keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so that you may not turn away from it to the right or to the left. So that you may not mingle with these peoples who remain among you, and the names of their gods shall not be spoken among you, and you shall not trust in them, nor bow down to them, nor worship them. But you shall serve the Lord your God, as you have done until this day. And the Lord will destroy from before your face the great and strong peoples, and you have none who can stand before you until this day. One man from among you will put to flight a thousand, because the Lord our God fights for us, as he told us. And keep your soul greatly, that you may love the Lord our God.

And if you mingle with them and abandon it, you will enter among these peoples who remain with you, and you will associate with them and dwell among them. And know for yourselves that the Lord your God destroyed these peoples before you, and they will become for you a stumbling block, a snare, and a punishment in your land, and they will prick your eyes until you perish from the blessed land which the Lord your God gave you. And I will go on the path like all who are in the land, and know with all your heart and all your soul that not a single word of all the good that the Lord our God has spoken to you has been omitted, and all has come to us, and there is nothing that has been lacking from it. And just as every good word that the Lord your God has spoken to you has come to you, so also the Lord your God will bring upon you every evil word until he destroys you from this blessed land which the Lord your God gave you.

If you abandon the covenant of your God, which He commanded you, and you go and worship the gods of another land, and bow down to them, the Lord will be angry with you in wrath, and He will swiftly destroy you from the land which He gave you. Joshua 24 24 And Joshua assembled all the people of Israel in Shiloh, and he summoned the elders of Israel, and their princes, and their scribes, and set them before the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: 'On the other side of the river your fathers of old dwelt—Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor—and they worshipped other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, and I led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his seed.'

And I gave to him Isaac, and to Isaac Jacob and Esau, and I gave to Esau Mount Seir as an inheritance. And Jacob and his descendants went down into Egypt, and they were there a great multitude, numerous and strong, and they multiplied. And I killed the Egyptians because of what they did to them. And after this I brought you out, and I brought out your fathers, and you entered into the sea, and the Egyptians pursued you, and you fled after your fathers on horses and chariots into the Red Sea. And we cried out to the Lord, and He sent a cloud and darkness between us and the Egyptians, and He brought the sea over them and covered them, and your own eyes saw all that the Lord did in the land of Egypt, and you dwelt many days in the wilderness. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt in the plain of the Jordan, and Moses fought them, and the Lord delivered them into our hands, and you inherited their land, and I destroyed them before you.

Then Balak, son of Sephor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel and against Ake, and summoned Balaam, son of Beor, to curse them. But the Lord your God did not wish to destroy you; rather, he blessed us and saved us from their hands, and delivered them to us. And we crossed the Jordan and entered into Jericho, and we fought against those who dwelt in Jericho, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, and the Lord delivered them into our hands. And he sent before us a hornet against them, and he confounded before us the eleven kings of the Amorites, some by your sword and some by your bow. And he gave you the land which you desired in it, and the cities which you burned, and you dwelt in them, and you planted vineyards, olives, and fruit trees, and you eat of them.

And now, fear the Lord your God and worship him in righteousness and uprightness, and abandon the foreign gods which your fathers worshipped on the banks of the river and in Egypt, and worship the Lord your God. And if you wish to worship the Lord your God, choose for yourselves today whom you will worship: whether the gods of your fathers, those of the banks of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; as for me and my house, we worship the Lord our God, for he is holy. And the people answered and said, "It is true for us, until we abandon the Lord our God and worship other gods." For us, the Lord is our God, for he is God, and he brought us out, us and our fathers, from Egypt, from the house of bondage, and all the great miracles he did for us, and he guarded us on every path on which we traveled among all the peoples over whom we passed.

And the Lord drove out the Amorites and all the peoples who dwelt in the land before us, and likewise we also worship the Lord, for he is our God. And Joshua said to the people, “Do not abandon the worship of the Lord, for he is holy; and since you have pleased him, he will forgive you your sins and your transgressions. But if you abandon the Lord and worship foreign gods, he will go away and mock you and destroy you, instead of the good he has done for you.” And the people said to Joshua, “Indeed, we worship the Lord.” And Joshua said to the people, “Listen to yourselves, since you have chosen the Lord, you shall worship him.” And they said, “We have listened.” And he said to them, “Now then, cast out the foreign gods that are with you, and direct your hearts toward the Lord, the God of Israel.

And the people said to Joshua, “We worship the Lord, our God, and we hear his word.” And Joshua disputed with the people on that day, and he gave them law and judgment in Shiloh, before the tabernacle of the God of Israel. And Joshua wrote this matter in the book of the law of the Lord. And Joshua took a great stone and placed it under a terebinth tree before the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone will be a witness against you, for it is a witness of everything that was spoken before the Lord, as I have spoken to you today. And it will be a witness against you in the latter days, if you deny the Lord, my God.” And Joshua dismissed the people, and they all went to their dwellings.

And Israel worshipped the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the judges who were after Joshua, and all those who saw the works of the Lord, all that he did for Israel. And after this, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred and ten years of age. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, in Timnath-serah, in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gilboa. There they placed with him in his tomb, where they buried him, the knives of flint with which he had circumcised the children of Israel at Gilgal when they came out of Egypt, as the Lord had commanded him; and there they remain to this day. And the bones of Joseph, which they brought out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in one plot of ground which Jacob had purchased from the Amorites who dwelt in Shechem for a hundred lambs, and he gave it to Joseph as his portion.

And it came to pass after this, and Eleazar son of Aaron, the high priest, died, and they buried him in the land of Gibeon, which he had given to Phinehas his son, on Mount Ephraim. And when this was finished, the children of Israel took up the tabernacle of the Lord and carried it with them, and Phinehas became high priest in place of Eleazar his father until he died, and they mourned for him in Gibeon, in their land. And all the children of Israel returned to their houses and to their cities. And the children of Israel worshipped Astarte and Ashtaroth and the gods of the peoples whom the Lord had delivered and brought into the hand of Eglon, king of Moab, and he ruled over them for eighteen years.