The Conquest of the Promised Land

Chapter 1

¹After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ attendant:

²“My servant Moses is dead. Prepare to cross the Jordan, together with all this people, into the land that I am giving to the Israelites. ³Every spot on which your foot treads I give to you, as I promised Moses. ⁴Your territory shall extend from the wilderness and the Lebanon to the Great River, the River Euphrates [on the east]—the whole Hittite country—and up to the Mediterranean Sea on the west. ⁵No one shall be able to resist you as long as you live. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

⁶“Be strong and resolute, for you shall apportion to this people the land that I swore to their fathers to assign to them. ⁷But you must be very strong and resolute to observe faithfully all the Teaching that My servant Moses enjoined upon you. Do not deviate from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸Let not this Book of the Teaching cease from your lips, but recite it day and night, so that you may observe faithfully all that is written in it. Only then will you prosper in your undertakings and only then will you be successful.

⁹“I charge you: Be strong and resolute; do not be terrified or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

¹⁰Joshua thereupon gave orders to the officials of the people: ¹¹“Go through the camp and charge the people thus: Get provisions ready, for in three days’ time you are to cross the Jordan, in order to enter and possess the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.”

¹²Then Joshua said to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, ¹³“Remember what Moses the servant of the Lord enjoined upon you, when he said: ‘The Lord your God is granting you a haven; He has assigned this territory to you.’ ¹⁴Let your wives, children, and livestock remain in the land that Moses assigned to you on this side of the Jordan; but every one of your fighting men shall go across armed in the van of your kinsmen. And you shall assist them ¹⁵until the Lord has given your kinsmen a haven, such as you have, and they too have gained possession of the land that the Lord your God has assigned to them. Then you may return to the land on the east side of the Jordan, which Moses the servant of the Lord assigned to you as your possession, and you may possess it.”

¹⁶They answered Joshua, “We will do everything you have commanded us and we will go wherever you send us. ¹⁷We will obey you just as we obeyed Moses; let but the Lord your God be with you as He was with Moses! ¹⁸Any man who flouts your commands and does not obey every order you give him shall be put to death. Only be strong and resolute!”

Chapter 2

¹Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, reconnoiter the region of Jericho.” So they set out, and they came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there. ²The king of Jericho was told, “Some men have come here tonight, Israelites, to spy out the country.” ³The king of Jericho thereupon sent orders to Rahab: “Produce the men who came to you and entered your house, for they have come to spy out the whole country.” ⁴The woman, however, had taken the two men and hidden them. “It is true,” she said, “the men did come to me, but I didn’t know where they were from. ⁵And at dark, when the gate was about to be closed, the men left; and I don’t know where the men went. Quick, go after them, for you can overtake them.”—⁶Now she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under some stalks of flax which she had lying on the roof.—⁷So the men pursued them in the direction of the Jordan down to the fords; and no sooner had the pursuers gone out than the gate was shut behind them.

⁸The spies had not yet gone to sleep when she came up to them on the roof. ⁹She said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given the country to you, because dread of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land are quaking before you. ¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Sea of Reeds for you when you left Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, whom you doomed.^{a 11}When we heard about it, we lost heart, and no man had any more spirit left because of you; for the Lord your God is the only God in heaven above and on earth below. ¹²Now, since I have shown loyalty to you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will show loyalty to my family. Provide me with a reliable sign ¹³that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and save us from death.” ¹⁴The men answered her, “Our persons are pledged for yours, even to death! If you do not disclose this mission of ours, we will show you true loyalty when the Lord gives us the land.”

¹⁵She let them down by a rope through the window—for her dwelling was at the outer side of the city wall and she lived in the actual wall. ¹⁶She said to them, “Make for the hills, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Stay there in hiding three days, until the pursuers return; then go your way.”

¹⁷But the men warned her, “We will be released from this oath which you have made us take ¹⁸[unless,] when we invade the country, you tie this length of crimson cord to the window through which you let us down. Bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your family together in your house; ¹⁹and if anyone ventures outside the doors of your house, his blood will be on his head, and we shall be clear. But if a hand is laid on anyone who remains in the house with you, his blood shall be on our heads. ²⁰And if you disclose this mission of ours, we shall likewise be released from the oath which you made us take.” ²¹She replied, “Let it be as you say.”

She sent them on their way, and they left; and she tied the crimson cord to the window.

²²They went straight to the hills and stayed there three days, until the pursuers turned back. And so the pursuers, searching all along the road, did not find them.

²³Then the two men came down again from the hills and crossed over. They came to Joshua son of Nun and reported to him all that had happened to them. ²⁴They said to Joshua, “The Lord has delivered the whole land into our power; in fact, all the inhabitants of the land are quaking before us.” [ . . . ]

Chapter 4

¹When the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ²“Select twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, ³and instruct them as follows: Pick up twelve stones from the spot exactly in the middle of the Jordan, where the priests’ feet are standing; take them along with you and deposit them in the place where you will spend the night.”

⁴Joshua summoned the twelve men whom he had designated among the Israelites, one from each tribe; ⁵and Joshua said to them, “Walk up to the Ark of the Lord your God, in the middle of the Jordan, and each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder—corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel. ⁶This shall serve as a symbol among you: in time to come, when your children ask, ‘What is the meaning of these stones for you?’ ⁷you shall tell them, ‘The waters of the Jordan were cut off because of the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant; when it passed through the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ And so these stones shall serve the people of Israel as a memorial for all time.”

⁸The Israelites did as Joshua ordered. They picked up twelve stones, corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel, from the middle of the Jordan—as the Lord had charged Joshua—and they took them along with them to their night encampment and deposited them there.

⁹Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the spot where the feet of the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant had stood; and they have remained there to this day.

¹⁰The priests who bore the Ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until all the instructions that the Lord had ordered Joshua to convey to the people had been carried out. And so the people speedily crossed over, just as Moses had assured Joshua in his charge to him. ¹¹And when all the people finished crossing, the Ark of the Lord and the priests advanced to the head of the people.

¹²The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh went across armed in the van of the Israelites, as Moses had charged them. ¹³About forty thousand shock troops went across, at the instance of the Lord, to the steppes of Jericho for battle.

¹⁴On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, so that they revered him all his days as they had revered Moses.

¹⁵The Lord said to Joshua, ¹⁶“Command the priests who bear the Ark of the Pact to come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁷So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁸As soon as the priests who bore the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant came up out of the Jordan, and the feet of the priests stepped onto the dry ground, the waters of the Jordan resumed their course, flowing over its entire bed as before.

¹⁹The people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. ²⁰And Joshua set up in Gil-gal the twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan. ²¹He charged the Israelites as follows: “In time to come, when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of those stones?’ ²²tell your children: ‘Here the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry land.’ ²³For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you crossed, just as the Lord your God did to the Sea of Reeds, which He dried up before us until we crossed. ²⁴Thus all the peoples of the earth shall know how mighty is the hand of the Lord, and you shall fear the Lord your God always.” [ . . . ]

Chapter 6

¹Now Jericho was shut up tight because of the Israelites; no one could leave or enter.

²The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I will deliver Jericho and her king [and her] warriors into your hands. ³Let all your troops march around the city and complete one circuit of the city. Do this six days, ⁴with seven priests carrying seven ram’s horns preceding the Ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the horns. ⁵And when a long blast is sounded on the horn—as soon as you hear that sound of the horn—all the people shall give a mighty shout. Thereupon the city wall will collapse, and the people shall advance, every man straight ahead.”

⁶Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said to them, “Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and let seven priests carrying seven ram’s horns precede the Ark of the Lord.” ⁷And he instructed the people, “Go forward, march around the city, with the vanguard marching in front of the Ark of the Lord.” ⁸When Joshua had instructed the people, the seven priests carrying seven ram’s horns advanced before the Lord, blowing their horns; and the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant followed them. ⁹The vanguard marched in front of the priests who were blowing the horns, and the rear guard marched behind the Ark, with the horns sounding all the time. ¹⁰But Joshua’s orders to the rest of the people were, “Do not shout, do not let your voices be heard, and do not let a sound issue from your lips until the moment that I command you, ‘Shout!’ Then you shall shout.”

¹¹So he had the Ark of the Lord go around the city and complete one circuit; then they returned to camp and spent the night in camp. ¹²Joshua rose early the next day; and the priests took up the Ark of the Lord, ¹³while the seven priests bearing the seven ram’s horns marched in front of the Ark of the Lord, blowing the horns as they marched. The vanguard marched in front of them, and the rear guard marched behind the Ark of the Lord, with the horns sounding all the time. ¹⁴And so they marched around the city once on the second day and returned to the camp. They did this six days.

¹⁵On the seventh day, they rose at daybreak and marched around the city, in the same manner, seven times; that was the only day that they marched around the city seven times. ¹⁶On the seventh round, as the priests blew the horns, Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city. ¹⁷The city and everything in it are to be proscribed for the Lord; only Rahab the harlot is to be spared, and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers we sent. ¹⁸But you must beware of that which is proscribed, or else you will be proscribed: if you take anything from that which is proscribed, you will cause the camp of Israel to be proscribed; you will bring calamity upon it. ¹⁹All the silver and gold and objects of copper and iron are consecrated to the Lord; they must go into the treasury of the Lord.”

²⁰So the people shouted when the horns were sounded. When the people heard the sound of the horns, the people raised a mighty shout and the wall collapsed. The people rushed into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they captured the city. ²¹They exterminated everything in the city with the sword: man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and ass. ²²But Joshua bade the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the harlot’s house and bring out the woman and all that belong to her, as you swore to her.” ²³So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and her mother, her brothers and all that belonged to her—they brought out her whole family and left them outside the camp of Israel.

²⁴They burned down the city and everything in it. But the silver and gold and the objects of copper and iron were deposited in the treasury of the House of the Lord. ²⁵Only Rahab the harlot and her father’s family were spared by Joshua, along with all that belonged to her, and she dwelt among the Israelites—as is still the case. For she had hidden the messengers that Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

²⁶At that time Joshua pronounced this oath: “Cursed of the Lord be the man who shall undertake to fortify this city of Jericho: he shall lay its foundations at the cost of his first-born, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest.”

²⁷The Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land. [ . . . ]

Chapter 23

¹Much later, after the Lord had given Israel rest from all the enemies around them, and when Joshua was old and well advanced in years, ²Joshua summoned all Israel, their elders and commanders, their magistrates and officials, and said to them: “I have grown old and am advanced in years. ³You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all those nations on your account, for it was the Lord your God who fought for you. ⁴See, I have allotted to you, by your tribes, [the territory of] these nations that still remain, and that of all the nations that I have destroyed, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ⁵The Lord your God Himself will thrust them out on your account and drive them out to make way for you, and you shall possess their land as the Lord your God promised you.

⁶“But be most resolute to observe faithfully all that is written in the Book of the Teaching of Moses, without ever deviating from it to the right or to the left, ⁷and without intermingling with these nations that are left among you. Do not utter the names of their gods or swear by them; do not serve them or bow down to them. ⁸But hold fast to the Lord your God as you have done to this day.

⁹“The Lord has driven out great, powerful nations on your account, and not a man has withstood you to this day. ¹⁰A single man of you would put a thousand to flight, for the Lord your God Himself has been fighting for you, as He promised you. ¹¹For your own sakes, therefore, be most mindful to love the Lord your God. ¹²For should you turn away and attach yourselves to the remnant of those nations—to those that are left among you—and intermarry with them, you joining them and they joining you, ¹³know for certain that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you; they shall become a snare and a trap for you, a scourge to your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴“I am now going the way of all the earth. Acknowledge with all your heart and soul that not one of the good things that the Lord your God promised you has failed to happen; they have all come true for you, not a single one has failed. ¹⁵But just as every good thing that the Lord your God promised you has been fulfilled for you, so the Lord can bring upon you every evil thing until He has wiped you off this good land that the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁶If you break the covenant that the Lord your God enjoined upon you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you shall quickly perish from the good land that He has given you.”

Chapter 24

¹Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned Israel’s elders and commanders, magistrates and officers; and they presented themselves before God. ²Then Joshua said to all the people, “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: In olden times, your forefathers—Terah, father of Abraham and father of Na-hor—lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods. ³But I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and led him through the whole land of Canaan and multiplied his offspring. I gave him Isaac, ⁴and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir as his possession, while Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.

⁵“Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with [the wonders] that I wrought in their midst, after which I freed you—⁶I freed your fathers—from Egypt, and you came to the Sea. But the Egyptians pursued your fathers to the Sea of Reeds with chariots and horsemen. ⁷They cried out to the Lord, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians; then He brought the Sea upon them, and it covered them. Your own eyes saw what I did to the Egyptians.

“After you had lived a long time in the wilderness, ⁸I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan. They gave battle to you, but I delivered them into your hands; I annihilated them for you, and you took possession of their land. ⁹Thereupon Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, made ready to attack Israel. He sent for Balaam son of Beor to curse you, ¹⁰but I refused to listen to Balaam; he had to bless you, and thus I saved you from him.

¹¹“Then you crossed the Jordan and you came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho and the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites fought you, but I delivered them into your hands. ¹²I sent a plague ahead of you, and it drove them out before you—[ just like] the two Amorite kings—not by your sword or by your bow. ¹³I have given you a land for which you did not labor and towns which you did not build, and you have settled in them; you are enjoying vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.

¹⁴“Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve Him with undivided loyalty; put away the gods that your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵Or, if you are loath to serve the Lord, choose this day which ones you are going to serve—the gods that your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates, or those of the Amorites in whose land you are settled; but I and my household will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶In reply, the people declared, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord and serve other gods! ¹⁷For it was the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, and who wrought those wondrous signs before our very eyes, and guarded us all along the way that we traveled and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed. ¹⁸And then the Lord drove out before us all the peoples—the Amorites—that inhabited the country. We too will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹Joshua, however, said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions and your sins. ²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve alien gods, He will turn and deal harshly with you and make an end of you, after having been gracious to you.” ²¹But the people replied to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!” ²²Thereupon Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have by your own act chosen to serve the Lord.” “Yes, we are!” they responded. ²³“Then put away the alien gods that you have among you and direct your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” ²⁴And the people declared to Joshua, “We will serve none but the Lord our God, and we will obey none but Him.”

²⁵On that day at Shechem, Joshua made a covenant for the people and he made a fixed rule for them. ²⁶Joshua recorded all this in a book of divine instruction. He took a great stone and set it up at the foot of the oak in the sacred precinct of the Lord; ²⁷and Joshua said to all the people, “See, this very stone shall be a witness against us, for it heard all the words that the Lord spoke to us; it shall be a witness against you, lest you break faith with your God.” ²⁸Joshua then dismissed the people to their allotted portions.

²⁹After these events, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years. ³⁰They buried him on his own property, at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. ³¹Israel served the Lord during the lifetime of Joshua and the lifetime of the elders who lived on after Joshua, and who had experienced all the deeds that the Lord had wrought for Israel.

³²The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the piece of ground which Jacob had bought for a hundred kesitahs from the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, and which had become a heritage of the Josephites.

³³Eleazar son of Aaron also died, and they buried him on the hill of his son Phinehas, which had been assigned to him in the hill country of Ephraim.