Joshua 23–24

Joshua’s Farewell Address

23Now it came to pass, a long time after the Lord ^ahad given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua ^bwas old, advanced in age. ²And Joshua ^ccalled for all Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them:

“I am old, advanced in age. ³You have seen all that the ^dLord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the ^eLord your God is He who has fought for you. ⁴See, ^fI have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, as far as the Great Sea westward. ⁵And the Lord your God ^gwill expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight. So you shall possess their land, ^has the Lord your God promised you. ⁶ⁱTherefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, ^jlest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, ⁷and lest you ^kgo ¹among these nations, these who remain among you. You shall not ^lmake mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to ^mswear by them; you shall not ⁿserve them nor bow down to them, ⁸but you shall ^ohold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. ^9pFor the Lord has ²driven out from before you great and strong nations; but as for you, no one has been able to stand against you to this day. ^10qOne man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, ^ras He promised you. ^11sTherefore take careful heed to yourselves, that you love the Lord your God. ¹²Or else, if indeed you do ^tgo back, and cling to the remnant of these nations—these that remain among you—and ^umake marriages with them, and go in to them and they to you, ¹³know for certain that ^vthe Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. ^wBut they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴“Behold, this day ^xI ³am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that ^ynot one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed. ^15zTherefore it shall come to pass, that as all the good things have come upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so the Lord will bring upon you ^aall harmful things, until He has destroyed you from this good land which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁶⁴When you have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, then the ^banger of the Lord will burn against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land which He has given you.”

The Covenant at Shechem

24Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to ^aShechem and ^bcalled for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they ^cpresented themselves before God. ²And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ^d‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of ¹the River in old times; and ^ethey served other gods. ^3fThen I took your father Abraham from the other side of ²the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his ³descendants and ^ggave him Isaac. ⁴To Isaac I gave ^hJacob and Esau. To ⁱEsau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, ^jbut Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. ^5kAlso I sent Moses and Aaron, and ^lI plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.

⁶‘Then I ^mbrought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. ⁷So they cried out to the Lord; and He put ⁿdarkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And ^oyour eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness ^pa long time. ⁸And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, ^qand they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. ⁹Then ^rBalak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and ^ssent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. ^10tBut I would not listen to Balaam; ^utherefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. ¹¹Then ^vyou went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And ^wthe men of Jericho fought against you—also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I delivered them into your hand. ^12xI sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but ^ynot with your sword or with your bow. ¹³I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and ^zcities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

^14a“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in ^bsincerity and in truth, and ^cput away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of ⁴the River and ^din Egypt. Serve the Lord! ¹⁵And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, ^echoose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether ^fthe gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of ⁵the River, or ^gthe gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. ^hBut as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶So the 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 bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. ¹⁸And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. ⁱWe also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹But Joshua said to the people, ^j“You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a ^kholy God. He is ^la jealous God; ^mHe will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. ²⁰ⁿIf you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, ^othen He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.”

²¹And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!”

²²So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that ^pyou have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.”

And they said, “We are witnesses!”

²³“Now therefore,” he said, ^q“put away the foreign gods which are among you, and ^rincline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.”

²⁴And the people ^ssaid to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”

²⁵So Joshua ^tmade ⁶a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance ^uin Shechem.

²⁶Then Joshua ^vwrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took ^wa large stone, and ^xset it up there ^yunder the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. ²⁷And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be ^za witness to us, for ^ait has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.” ²⁸So ^bJoshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.

Death of Joshua and Eleazar

^29cNow it came to pass 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 within the border of his inheritance at ^dTimnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.

^31eIsrael served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had ^fknown all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

^32gThe bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground ^hwhich Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred ⁷pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph.

³³And ⁱEleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to ^jPhinehas his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.