1 After the death of Yahweh’s servant Mosheh (Moses), Yahweh spoke to Mosheh’s servant Yehoshua (Joshua) (the son of Nun), saying, 2 “Now that my servant Mosheh is dead, you and all these people should pack up and cross over this River Yordan to go to the land that I am about to give to them—to Yisra’el’s descendants. 3 I’ll give you all every place that the soles of your feet tread on, just like I told Mosheh.[ref] 4 Your territory will extend from the wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, and from the large Euphrates River in the east, and right to the Mediterranean sea in the west, including all of the Hittites’ land. 5 No man will be able to challenge your leadership as long as you live—I’ll be with you just as I was with Mosheh—I won’t fail you or abandon you.[ref] 6 Be strong and be courageous, for you yourself will lead these people to inherit the land that I promised their ancestors that I’d give to them.[ref] 7 Just be strong and very courageous—making sure that you obey everything that my servant Mosheh instructed you. Don’t turn turn away to the right or to the left from it, so that you’ll be wise in every situation that you end up in. 8 That book of the law must always be on your lips and you should meditate on it day and night, so that you’ll be careful to follow everything that’s written in it, because then you’ll make your ways prosperous and then you’ll be wise. 9 Didn’t I order you to be strong and courageous? Don’t tremble or be discouraged because your God Yahweh will be with you wherever you go.”

10 Then Yehoshua instructed the leaders of the people, 11 “Go right through the camp and tell the people: Get everything ready that you’ll all need because in three days we’ll be ready to cross over this river and enter the land that your God Yahweh is about to give to you, and to take control of it.”

12 To the descendants of Reuben and Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manashsheh, Yehoshua said,[ref] 13 “Remember what Yahweh’s servant Mosheh informed you: Your God Yahweh is about give this land to you and to enable you all to settle down. 14 Your women and children and your livestock will stay here in the land that Mosheh allocated to you on this eastern side of the Yordan River. But your soldiers must dress for battle and cross over ahead of your brothers and help them 15 until Yahweh enables your brothers to take over the land that your God Yahweh is about to give them so they can settle like you all have. Then you’ll all be able to return to this land which Yahweh’s servant Moses gave you on this eastern side of the Yordan and take full control of it.”

16 “We’ll do everything you’ve told us to,” the people answered, “and we’ll go wherever you send us. 17 We’ll listen to you just like we listened to everything Mosheh said. May your God Yahweh be with you, just like he was with Mosheh. 18 We’ll put anyone to death who rebels against your words or refuses to follow your instructions. Just stay strong and courageous.”

2 Then from there at Acacia Grove, Yehoshua (Nun’s son) secretly sent off two spies, saying, “Go and learn about the land over there, especially around Yericho City.” So they went off, and over there, they entered the house of a woman—a prostitute named Rahab—and they lay down there.[ref] 2 However, someone told Yericho’s king, “Listen, some Israeli men arrived here tonight to check out our land.” 3 So the king sent guards to tell Rahab, “Bring out the men who went to your place and stayed the night, because they’ve come here to check out our land!”

4 However, Rahab had hidden the two men so she answered, “Indeed, the men arrived here, but I didn’t know where they were from. 5 But as the city gate was about to shut last night, the men went out. I don’t know to where they went—if you all hurry, you might be able to catch them.” 6 (But actually she had taken them up onto her flat roof and hidden them in bundles of flax that were drying there.) 7 So the guards hurried out on the road to the fords on the Yordan River and the city gate was kept shut after they had left.

8 Before the Israeli men lay down to sleep that night, Rahab went up them on the roof 9 and told them, “We know that Yahweh has given this land to you all and we’re all terrified of you. Everyone that lives here is trembling at the thought of your coming 10 because we’ve heard that Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea ahead of you all when you left Egypt (Mitsrayim). And we heard what you all did to two of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og over the Yordan there—how you all completely destroyed them.[ref] 11 Yes, we’ve heard the reports and we trembled and lost our courage to fight you all because your God Yahweh, he’s God over the heavens above and the earth below. 12 So now, please promise me by Yahweh that because I’ve been kind to both of you, you all will act kindly towards my father’s household. Give me a guarantee that you’ll do what you promise 13 and spare my parents and my siblings and their families from death.”

14 “Our lives for your lives,” the two men agreed. “If you don’t tell anyone about our agreement, then when Yahweh gives us this land, we’ll show kindness and faithfulness to you.”

15 Then she put a rope out through the window to let them down to escape from the city, because her house where she lived was actually built into the side of the wall. 16 “Go to the hill country,” she told them, “so those searching for you won’t find you, and hide up there for three days. Then once the searchers have returned, you’ll be able to safely return to your camp.”

17 “This promise that you made us make,” the men told her, “won’t apply unless you do this: 18 Take this red cord and when we invade the land, tie it in this window in the wall. Make sure that your parents and your siblings and their households are all here in your house. 19 If any of them leaves the house, their life will then be in their own hands and we’ll be innocent if they’re killed. But if anyone with you in this house gets injured, we’ll be responsible for that. 20 Also, if you tell anyone else about this agreement, then we’ll be released from this promise that you made us make.” 21 “Sure, let it be as you say,” Rahab responded. Then she sent them off, and after they’d gone, she tied the red cord in her window.

22 The two men went up into the hills and stayed there for three days until the search party returned to the city after searching all the roads and not finding them. 23 So the two men went down to the river and crossed over and returned to Yehoshua (Nun’s son), and they told him everything that had happened. 24 “Yahweh has certainly given this land to us,” they told Yehoshua. “The people there won’t be able to resist us because they’re so terrified.”

3 Early the next morning, Yehoshua and the people got up early and set off from Acacia Grove and went as far as the Yordan River and camped there without crossing over. 2 After three days, the leaders went throughout the camp 3 and instructed the people, “As soon as you all see the box containing the agreement with your God Yahweh, and see the Levitical priests carrying it, then you yourselves should move out from your places and follow after it. 4 But keep about nine hundred metres back from it. Don’t go any closer than that so that you all can see the way to go, because we haven’t been this way before.”

5 Then Yehoshua told the people, “Make sure you all do the ritual washing to make yourselves pure, because tomorrow Yahweh will do miracles among us.” 6 And he told the priests, “Lift up the box with the agreement, and walk across here in front of the people.” So they lifted up the sacred chest and went and stood in front of all the people.

7 Then Yahweh told Yehoshua, “Today I’ll begin to make you powerful in the eyes of all Israel so they’ll know that I’m with you just like I was with Mosheh. 8 Tell the priests who’re carrying the sacred chest that as soon as they come to the edge of the river, they should go in just a little and then stop there.”

9 Then Yehoshua told the Israelis, “Gather around here and listen to your God Yahweh’s message.” 10 He told them, “This is how you’ll all know that God, who can do anything, is among you. With your own eyes, you’ll all see how he’ll take away the land from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. 11 Listen, the sacred chest containing the slabs that belongs to the master who owns the whole world, is about to be taken across the Yordan in front of you. 12 So now, select one man from each of your twelve tribes, 13 and as soon as the priests carrying the sacred chest go into the Yordan, as soon as their feet touch the water, the river water on the upstream side will pile up in a heap.”

14 So once the people had packed up their tents ready to cross the river, the priests carrying the sacred box walked ahead in front of them. 15 Then as soon as those priests steeped into the edge of the fast-flowing river (because it overflowed its banks at harvest time in the spring), 16 then the water coming from upstream suddenly stopped flowing. The water far upstream piled up near a town called Adam (near Tsaretan), and the water that normally flowed down towards the Sea of Arabah (also called the Dead Sea or the Salt Sea) stopped flowing, so the people were able to cross what was the Yordan River opposite Yericho. 17 The priests carrying the sacred chest with Yahweh’s agreement in it, stood on firm, dry ground in what had been the middle of the river. All the Israelis crossed over on dry ground until everyone was across.

4 Once all the people had crossed over the Yordan River, Yahweh told Yehoshua, 2 “Take those twelve men that the people selected from each tribe, 3 and give them these instructions: Pick up twelve rocks from here in the middle of the Yordan from near where the priests are standing, and bring them over with you, and put them in the place where you all camp tonight.”

4 So Yehoshua called over the twelve men, one from each tribe, 5 and told them, “Cross back to where your God Yahweh’s box is in the middle of the Yordan and each of you should pick up a rock and carry it back on your shoulder—one stone each on your shoulder to match the number of tribes of Yisra’el’s sons. 6 Those rocks will be a monument for all the people. In the future when your children ask what those rocks mean, 7 then you’ll all be able to tell them that the water in the Yordan River was cut off ahead of the box with Yahweh’s agreement. When it crossed over into the river, the water in the river stopped flowing, and those rocks are a memorial for the Israelis forever.

8 So the Israelis did just what Yehoshua had told them to do, and they picked up twelve rocks from the Yordan, just as Yahweh had instructed Yehoshua, and brought them over to where the people were camping and placed them down there. 9 Then Yehoshua stacked up twelve other rocks in the middle of the Yordan where the feet of the priests carrying the box with the agreement had been, and they remain there until today. 10 The priests carrying the box had stood in the middle of the Yordan until everything that Yahweh had instructed Yehoshua to pass on to the people was done, just as Mosheh had also instructed Yehoshua, and the people had rapidly crossed over.

11 As soon as all the people had crossed over, the priests carrying Yahweh’s box also crossed over in front of the people. 12 The soldiers from the tribes of Reuben, and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh had marched over ahead of the rest of the Israeli, as Mosheh had agreed with them. 13 (There were around forty thousand of them, armed and ready for battle, and they were heading to the plains of Yericho for the battle there.) 14 On that day, Yahweh helped Yehoshua to look powerful in the eyes of the people, and they respected him just as they had respected Mosheh all the days of his[fn] life.

15 Then Yahweh told Yehoshua, 16 “Now order the priests carrying the box with the agreement to come up out of what was the Yordan River,” 17 so Yehoshua instructed the priests to come on up from the Yordan. 18 As soon as the priests carrying the box with Yahweh’s agreement came up out of what had been the Yordan River and their feet stepped onto what had been dry land, the river water returned to its place and overflowed it banks as it had been doing for the previous few days.

19 The people had come up from the river valley around the end of March and they camped east of Yericho at Gilgal, 20 which was where they had set up the monument of twelve rocks. 21 Then Yehoshua told the Israelis, “In the future when your descendants ask why these rocks are here, 22 tell them that this is where Israel crossed the Yordan River on dry land. 23 Your God Yahweh dried up the river water ahead of you until you’d all crossed over, just as he had done when he dried up the Red Sea before we crossed over. 24 Yahweh did that so that all the peoples in the world would know that he is powerful, and so that you’ll always all respect him.

5 When all the Amorite kings who were on the west side of the Yordan (towards the ocean) and all the Canaanite kings (beside the ocean) heard how Yahweh had dried up the water in the Yordan River until the Israelis had crossed over, they trembled with fear and lost their nerve to stand against Israel.

2 At that time, Yahweh told Yehoshua, “Make yourself flint knives and again circumcise the male Israelis.” 3 So Yehoshua had flint knives made and the male Israelis were circumcised at a place they named ‘The hill of foreskins’. 4 (This was done because all the men who’d left Egypt and who were old enough to join the army had been circumcised but had died in the wilderness since then,[ref] 5 and because all the boys who’d been born while they were in the wilderness after they’d left Egypt hadn’t been circumcised. 6 The Israelis have spent forty years moving around the wilderness until the last of those men who’d left Egypt but hadn’t listened to Yahweh had died. Yahweh had promised not to let them see the land that he’d promised to their ancestors to give them—a land flowing with milk and honey. 7 It was the sons of those people that Yehoshua had circumcised this time because they hadn’t been circumcised on the way.)

8 After all their males had been circumcised, they remained in that camp until they’d healed up. 9 Then Yahweh told Yehoshua, “Today I’ve rolled away the disgrace of Egypt from you,” and that place is named Gilgal[fn] until this day.

10 In the evening of the fourth day that the people had been camped at Gilgal there on the plains near Yericho, they celebrated the ‘pass-over’.[ref]

11 The next day they ate roasted grain that they’d taken from that area, and ate flat bread that same day. 12 The day after they’d eaten some of the produce from that area, there was no manna on the ground to be collected and so it stopped—instead they’d eat the produce from the Canaan region beginning that year.[ref]

13 While Yehoshua was in the Yericho area, he looked up and saw a man in front of him. The man had drawn his sword and was holding it in his hand so Yehoshua approached him and asked, “Are you on our side, or with our enemies?”

14 “No,” the man answered, “but I, the leader of Yahweh’s army, have come now.”

Then Yehoshua fell to his knees and bowed down with his face to the ground, and asked him, “What’s my master going to command to his servant?”

15 “Take off your sandals,” the commander of Yahweh’s army told him, “because the ground that you’re standing is holy.” So Yehoshua took them off.

6 Now Yericho city was shut-up tightly because of the Israelis, so no one was coming out and no one could go in. 2 Then Yahweh told Yehoshua, “Listen, I’ve given you victory over Yericho and its king, and their mighty army warriors. 3 All your soldiers must go around the city once every day for six days 4 with seven priests blowing ram’s horns going ahead of the sacred box. On the seventh day, you all must go around the city seven times while the priests are blowing the horns. 5 Finally, with a long blast of the horn, when you all hear that then all the people must shout loudly and the wall around the city will fall down flat, and all the soldiers should go straight in from where they’re standing.”

6 So Yehoshua summoned the priests and told them, “Carry the box with the agreement, and have seven priests hold up seven rams’ horns ahead of Yahweh’s box.” 7 Then he told the people, “Go across in front and go around the city, with the soldiers going ahead of Yahweh’s box.”

8 After Yehoshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests with their seven rams’ horns went across in front and blew the horns, and the box with Yahweh’s covenant was carried along behind them. 9 The soldiers walked ahead of the priests blowing the horns, with the rear guard walking behind the box. So they were walking and blowing the horns, 10 and Yehoshua told the people, “Don’t shout or even speak or make a noise until the day I tell you all to shout—then you all should shout loudly.”

11 So Yahweh’s box was carried once around the city, then the people went back to the camp and stayed the night there.

12 Yehoshua got up early the next morning, and the priests picked up Yahweh’s box 13 and the seven priests holding the seven rams’ horns went in front of it—blowing the horns as they kept walking. The soldiers walking in front of them, and the rear guard walked behind Yahweh’s box while the horns were being blown. 14 They went once around the city on that second day and then returned to their camp again—doing that for six days.

15 Then on the seventh day they got up early at dawn and went around the city as before, except this day they went around seven times. 16 After that seventh time around, the priests blew a long blast on the rams’ horns and Yehoshua told the people, “Shout, because Yahweh has given you all the city! 17 However, everything in the city is sacred to Yahweh. Only the prostitute Rahab and those who’re in her house will be allowed to live, because she hid the spies that we sent in. 18 But for all of you, everything inside the city is forbidden—if any of you take anything out of the city then our camp would also then be marked for destruction and it would cause a lot of trouble. 19 All the silver and gold, bronze and iron is dedicated to Yahweh and must go into his treasury.

20 So the people shouted when that horn blew—as soon as they heard it the people shouted loudly and the wall fell down on itself and the people went up and over into the city from wherever they were standing and captured the city.[ref] 21 They killed every living thing in the city with their swords, including men and women, young and old, even cattle, sheep, and donkeys.

22 Then Yehoshua commanded the two men who had spied on the area, “Go to the prostitute’s house and bring the woman out of it and all who’re related to her, just as you promised her.” 23 So the young men who’d gone in as spies went in and brought out Rahab and her parents and all her relatives and settled them outside of the camp of the Israelis. 24 Then the warriors set fire to the city and burnt everything that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and bronze and iron were first removed and put into the treasury of Yahweh’s house. 25 But Yehoshua spared the prostitute Rahab and her father’s household and her other relatives because she hid the men that Yehoshua had sent in to spy on Yericho, and she still lives in Israel to this day.[ref]

26 At that time, Yehoshua made the people take an oath, saying,[ref]

“May Yahweh curse anyone who rebuilds this city, Yericho.

When that person lays its foundation, may his oldest son die.

And when he finishes building the city wall and sets up its gates, may his youngest son die.”

27 So Yahweh was with Yehoshua and everyone in that region had heard about him.