¹⁵Joshua made a peace treaty with the men who had come. He agreed to let them live. The leaders of the community took an oath to show that they agreed with the treaty.

¹⁶The people of Israel made a peace treaty with the people of Gibeon. But three days later they heard that the people of Gibeon lived close to them. ¹⁷So the people of Israel started out to go to the cities of those men. On the third day they came to Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth and Kiriath Jearim.

¹⁸But they didn’t attack those cities. That’s because the leaders of the community had taken an oath and made a peace treaty with them. They had taken the oath in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

The whole community told the leaders they weren’t happy with them.

¹⁹But all of the leaders answered, “We’ve made a peace treaty with them. We’ve taken an oath in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. So we can’t touch them now.

²⁰“But here is what we’ll do to them. We’ll let them live. Then the Lord’s anger won’t fall on us because we didn’t keep the oath we took.”

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