Joshua 23–24

Chapter 23

Joshua’s Farewell Address

¹Now it came about after many days, when the Lord had given ^arest to Israel from all their enemies ¹on every side, and Joshua was old, advanced in years,

²that ^aJoshua called for all Israel, for their elders and their heads and their judges and their officers, and said to them, “I am old, advanced in years.

³“And you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for ^athe Lord your God is He who has been fighting for you.

⁴“See, ^aI have apportioned to you these nations which remain as an inheritance for your tribes, with all the nations which I have cut off, from the Jordan even to the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun.

⁵“The Lord your God, He will thrust them out from before you and ^1adrive them from before you; and ^byou will possess their land, just as the Lord your God ²promised you.

⁶“^aBe very firm, then, to keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so that you may not turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left,

⁷so that you will not ¹associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or ^amention the name of their gods, or ^bmake anyone swear by them, or ^cserve them, or bow down to them.

⁸“But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.

⁹“^aFor the Lord has ¹driven out great and strong nations from before you; and as for you, ^bno man has stood before you to this day.

¹⁰“^aOne of your men puts to flight a thousand, for the Lord your God is ^bHe who fights for you, just as He ¹promised you.

¹¹“So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God.

¹²“For if you ever go back and ^acling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and ^bintermarry with them, so that you ¹associate with them and they with you,

¹³know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to ¹drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a ^asnare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴“Now behold, today ^aI am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that ^bnot one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have ¹been fulfilled for you, not ²one of them has failed.

¹⁵“It shall come about that just as all the good words which the Lord your God spoke to you have come upon you, so ^athe Lord will bring upon you all the threats, until He has destroyed you from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁶“^aWhen you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you.”

Chapter 24

Joshua Reviews Israel’s History

¹Then ^aJoshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God.

²Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the ¹River, namely, ^aTerah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.

³‘Then ^aI took your father Abraham from beyond the ¹River, and led him through all the land of Canaan, and ^bmultiplied his ²descendants and gave him ^cIsaac.

⁴‘To Isaac I gave ^aJacob and Esau, and ^bto Esau I gave Mount Seir to possess it; but ^cJacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

⁵‘Then ^aI sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt ¹by what I did in its midst; and afterward I brought you out.

⁶‘I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and ^ayou came to the sea; and Egypt pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the ¹Red Sea.

⁷‘But when they cried out to the Lord, He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them; and your own eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And ^ayou lived in the wilderness for a long time.

⁸‘Then ^aI brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan, and they fought with you; and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land when I destroyed them before you.

⁹‘Then ^aBalak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel, and he sent and summoned Balaam the son of Beor to curse you.

¹⁰‘But I ^awas not willing to listen to Balaam. So he had to bless you, and I delivered you from his hand.

¹¹‘^aYou crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and ^bthe Amorite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Girgashite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. Thus ^cI gave them into your hand.

¹²‘Then I ^asent the hornet before you and it ¹drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, but ^bnot by your sword or your bow.

¹³‘^aI gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

“We Will Serve the Lord”

¹⁴“Now, therefore, ^1afear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and ²truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the ³River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

¹⁵“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or ^athe gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶The people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods;

¹⁷for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of ¹bondage, and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed.

¹⁸“The Lord drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, ^afor He is a holy God. He is ^ba jealous God; ^cHe will not forgive your transgression or your sins.

²⁰“^aIf you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.”

²¹The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.”

²²Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that ^ayou have chosen for yourselves the Lord, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.”

²³“Now therefore, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst, and ^aincline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

^24aThe people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and we will ¹obey His voice.”

^25aSo Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

²⁶And Joshua ^awrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.

²⁷Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, ^athis stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke ¹to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, so that you do not deny your God.”

²⁸Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance.

Joshua’s Death and Burial

²⁹It came about after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred and ten years old.

³⁰And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in ^aTimnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaash.

^31aIsrael served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who ¹survived Joshua, and had known all the deeds of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

³²Now ^athey buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem, in the piece of ground ^bwhich Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred ¹pieces of money; and they became the inheritance of Joseph’s sons.

³³And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him ¹at Gibeah of ^aPhinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim.