March 16
Joshua 22:21 —
24:33
21 At this the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered and spoke with the heads of the thousands of Israel: 22 “Divine One, God, Jehovah, Divine One, God, Jehovah, he is knowing, and Israel, he too will know. If it is in rebellion and if it is in unfaithfulness against Jehovah, do not save us this day. 23 If it was to build for ourselves an altar so as to turn back from following Jehovah, and if it was to offer up burnt offerings and grain offerings on it, and if it was to render up communion sacrifices on it, Jehovah himself will search out; 24 or if it was not rather out of anxious care for something else that we did this, saying, ‘In a future day YOUR sons will say to our sons: “What do YOU have to do with Jehovah the God of Israel? 25 And there is a boundary that Jehovah has put between us and YOU, the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad, namely, the Jordan. YOU have no share in Jehovah.” And YOUR sons will certainly make our sons desist from fearing Jehovah.’
26 “Hence we said, ‘Let us take action in our behalf, please, by building the altar, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, 27 but that it may be a witness between us and YOU and our generations after us that we shall render the service of Jehovah before him with our burnt offerings and our sacrifices and our communion sacrifices, that YOUR sons may not say in a future day to our sons: “YOU have no share in Jehovah.”’ 28 So we said, ‘And it must occur that in case they should say that to us and to our generations in a future day, we must also say: “See the representation of Jehovah’s altar that our fathers made, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, but it is a witness between us and YOU.”’ 29 It is unthinkable, on our part, to rebel of our own accord against Jehovah and to turn back today from following Jehovah by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering and sacrifice besides the altar of Jehovah our God that is before his tabernacle!”
30 Now when Phinehas the priest and the chieftains of the assembly and the heads of the thousands of Israel who were with him heard the words that the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the sons of Manasseh spoke, it came to be good in their eyes. 31 So Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the sons of Manasseh: “Today we do know that Jehovah is in our midst, because YOU have not perpetrated against Jehovah this act of unfaithfulness. Now YOU have delivered the sons of Israel out of the hand of Jehovah.”
32 With that Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest and the chieftains returned from the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad in the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan to the other sons of Israel and brought back word to them. 33 And the word came to be good in the eyes of the sons of Israel; and the sons of Israel proceeded to bless God, and they did not talk of going up for army service against them to ruin the land in which the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad were dwelling.
34 And
the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad began to name the altar, because “it is
a witness between us that Jehovah is the [true] God.”
23 And
it came about many days after Jehovah had given Israel rest from all their
enemies all around, when Joshua was old and advanced in days,
2 that
Joshua proceeded to call all Israel, its older men and its heads and its judges
and its officers, and to say to them: “As for me, I have grown old, I have
advanced in days.
3 And as
for YOU, YOU have seen all that Jehovah YOUR God did to all these nations on
YOUR account, because Jehovah YOUR God was the one who was fighting for YOU.
4 See, I
assigned to YOU by lot these nations that remain as an inheritance for YOUR
tribes, and all the nations that I cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea at
the setting of the sun.
5 And
Jehovah YOUR God was the one who kept pushing them away from before YOU, and he
dispossessed them on YOUR account, and YOU took possession of their land, just
as Jehovah YOUR God had promised YOU.
6 “And YOU must be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses by never turning away from it to the right or to the left, 7 by never going in among these nations, these that remain with YOU. And YOU must not mention the names of their gods nor swear by them, neither must YOU serve them nor bow down to them. 8 But it is to Jehovah YOUR God that YOU should cleave, just as YOU have done down to this day. 9 And Jehovah will drive away great and mighty nations from before YOU. (As for YOU, not a man has stood before YOU down to this day.) 10 Just one man of YOU will chase a thousand, because Jehovah YOUR God is the one who is fighting for YOU, just as he has promised YOU. 11 And YOU must be on constant guard for YOUR souls by loving Jehovah YOUR God.
12 “But if YOU should turn back at all and YOU do cleave to what is left of these nations, these that remain with YOU, and YOU do form marriage alliances with them and go in among them, and they among YOU, 13 YOU should positively know that Jehovah YOUR God will not continue to dispossess these nations on YOUR account; and they must become to YOU as a trap and as a snare and as a scourge on YOUR flanks and as thorns in YOUR eyes until YOU have perished off this good ground that Jehovah YOUR God has given YOU.
14 “Now,
look! I am going today in the way of all the earth, and YOU well know with all
YOUR hearts and with all YOUR souls that not one word out of all the good words
that Jehovah YOUR God has spoken to YOU has failed. They have all come true for
YOU. Not one word of them has failed.
15 And
it must occur that, just as all the good word that Jehovah YOUR God has spoken
to YOU has come upon YOU, so Jehovah will bring upon YOU all the evil word until
he has annihilated YOU from off this good ground that Jehovah YOUR God has given
YOU,
16 because
of YOUR overstepping the covenant of Jehovah YOUR God that he commanded YOU, and
because YOU have gone and served other gods and bowed down to them. And
Jehovah’s anger will certainly blaze against YOU, and YOU will certainly perish
in a hurry from off the good land that he has given YOU.”
24 And
Joshua proceeded to assemble all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem and
to call the older men of Israel and its heads and its judges and its officers,
and they went taking their stand before the [true] God.
2 And
Joshua went on to say to all the people: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel
has said, ‘It was on the other side of the River that YOUR forefathers dwelt a
long time ago, Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they
used to serve other gods.
3 “‘In time I took YOUR forefather Abraham from the other side of the River and had him walk through all the land of Canaan and made his seed many. So I gave him Isaac. 4 Then to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. Later to Esau I gave Mount Seir to take possession of it; and Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. 5 Later on I sent Moses and Aaron, and I went plaguing Egypt with what I did in its midst; and afterward I brought YOU out. 6 When I was bringing YOUR fathers out of Egypt and YOU came to the sea, then the Egyptians went chasing after YOUR fathers with war chariots and cavalrymen to the Red Sea. 7 And they began to cry out to Jehovah. So he placed a darkness between YOU and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered them, and YOUR eyes got to see what I did in Egypt; and YOU took up dwelling in the wilderness many days.
8 “‘Eventually I brought YOU to the land of the Amorites who were dwelling on the other side of the Jordan, and they went fighting against YOU. At that I gave them into YOUR hand that YOU might take possession of their land, and I annihilated them from before YOU. 9 Then Balak the son of Zippor, the king of Moab, got up and went fighting against Israel. So he sent and summoned Balaam the son of Beor to call down evil upon YOU. 10 And I did not want to listen to Balaam. Consequently he blessed YOU repeatedly. Thus I delivered YOU out of his hand.
11 “‘Then YOU went crossing the Jordan and came to Jericho. And the landowners of Jericho, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites, the Hivites and the Jebusites began fighting against YOU; but I gave them into YOUR hand. 12 So I sent the feeling of dejection ahead of YOU, and it gradually drove them out before YOU—two kings of the Amorites—not with your sword and not with your bow. 13 Thus I gave YOU a land for which YOU had not toiled and cities that YOU had not built, and YOU took up dwelling in them. Vineyards and olive groves that YOU did not plant are what YOU are eating.’
14 “And now fear Jehovah and serve him in faultlessness and in truth, and remove the gods that YOUR forefathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt, and serve Jehovah. 15 Now if it is bad in YOUR eyes to serve Jehovah, choose for yourselves today whom YOU will serve, whether the gods that YOUR forefathers who were on the other side of the River served or the gods of the Amorites in whose land YOU are dwelling. But as for me and my household, we shall serve Jehovah.”
16 At this the people answered and said: “It is unthinkable, on our part, to leave Jehovah so as to serve other gods. 17 For it is Jehovah our God who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves, and who performed these great signs before our eyes and who kept guarding us in all the way in which we walked and among all the peoples through the midst of whom we passed. 18 And Jehovah proceeded to drive out all the peoples, even the Amorites, dwelling in the land from before us. As for us, too, we shall serve Jehovah, because he is our God.”
19 Then Joshua said to the people: “YOU are not able to serve Jehovah, for he is a holy God; he is a God exacting exclusive devotion. He will not pardon YOUR revolting and YOUR sins. 20 In case YOU should leave Jehovah and YOU do serve foreign gods, he also will certainly turn back and do YOU injury and exterminate YOU after he has done YOU good.”
21 In turn the people said to Joshua: “No, but Jehovah we shall serve!” 22 At this Joshua said to the people: “YOU are witnesses against yourselves that YOU of YOUR own accord have chosen Jehovah for yourselves, to serve him.” To this they said: “We are witnesses.”
23 “And now remove the foreign gods that are among YOU, and incline YOUR hearts to Jehovah the God of Israel.” 24 In turn the people said to Joshua: “Jehovah our God we shall serve, and to his voice we shall listen!”
25 And Joshua proceeded to conclude a covenant with the people on that day and to constitute for them a regulation and judicial decision in Shechem. 26 Then Joshua wrote these words in the book of God’s law and took a great stone and set it up there under the massive tree that is by the sanctuary of Jehovah.
27 And Joshua went on to say to all the people: “Look! This stone is what will serve as a witness against us, because it has itself heard all the sayings of Jehovah that he has spoken with us, and it must serve as a witness against YOU, that YOU may not deny YOUR God.” 28 With that Joshua sent the people away, each one to his inheritance.
29 And it came about that after these things Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah, gradually died at the age of a hundred and ten years. 30 So they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the mountainous region of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 31 And Israel continued to serve Jehovah all the days of Joshua and all the days of the older men who extended their days after Joshua and who had known all the work of Jehovah that he did for Israel.
32 And Joseph’s bones, which the sons of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem in the tract of the field that Jacob had acquired from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money; and it came to belong to the sons of Joseph as an inheritance.
33 Also, Eleazar the son of Aaron died. So they buried him in the Hill of Phinehas his son, which he had given him in the mountainous region of Ephraim.