Joshua 24

The Covenant at Shechem

1 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God.2 And Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods.3 Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac.4 To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.5 Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.6 Then I brought 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.7 So they cried out to the Lord; and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness a long time.8 And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you.9 Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you.10 But I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand.11 Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And the 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.12 I sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but not with your sword or with your bow.13 I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.14 Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.16 So the people answered and said: Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods;17 for 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.18 And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.19 But Joshua said to the people, You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.21 And the people said to Joshua, No, but we will serve the Lord!22 So Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him. And they said, We are witnesses!23 Now therefore, he said, put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.24 And the people said to Joshua, The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.26 Then Joshua wrote 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.27 And Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it 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.28 So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.

Death of Joshua and Eleazar

29 Now 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.30 And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.31 Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.32 The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph.33 And Eleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.

JOSHUA 24

We Will Worship //and Obey //the [Lord]

1 Joshua called the tribes of Israel together for a meeting at Shechem. He asked the leaders, including the old men, the judges, and the officials, to come up and stand near the sacred tent.t

2 t Then Joshua told everyone to listen to this message from the [Lord], the God of Israel:
Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates River, and they worshiped other gods. This continued until the time of your ancestor Terah and his two sons, Abraham and Nahor. 3 t But I brought Abraham across the Euphrates River and led him through the land of Canaan. I blessed him by giving him Isaac, the first in a line of many descendants.

4 t Then I gave Isaac two sons, Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Mount Seir, but your ancestor Jacob and his children went to live in Egypt.
5-6  t Later I sent Moses and his brother Aaron to help your people, and I made all those horrible things happen to the Egyptians. I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, but the Egyptians got in their chariots and on their horses and chased your ancestors, catching up with them at the Red Sea.t

7 Your people cried to me for help, so I put a dark cloud between them and the Egyptians. Then I opened up the sea and let your people walk across on dry ground. But when the Egyptians tried to follow, I commanded the sea to swallow them, and they drowned while you watched.
You lived in the desert for a long time, 8 t then I brought you into the land east of the Jordan River. The Amorites were living there, and they fought you. But with my help, you defeated them, wiped them out, and took their land. 9 t King Balak decided that his nation Moab would go to war against you, so he asked Balaamt to come and put a curse on you.

10 But I wouldn't listen to Balaam, and I rescued you by making him bless you instead of curse you.
11  t You crossed the Jordan River and came to Jericho. The rulers of Jericho fought you, and so did the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. I helped you defeat them all.

12 t Your enemies ran from you, but not because you had swords and bows and arrows. I made your enemies panic and run away, as I had done with the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River.

13  t You didn't have to work for this land—I gave it to you. Now you live in towns you didn't build, and you eat grapes and olives from vineyards and trees you didn't plant.

14 Then Joshua told the people:
Worship the [Lord], obey him, and always be faithful. Get rid of the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived on the other side of the Euphrates River and in Egypt.

15 But if you don't want to worship the [Lord], then choose here and now! Will you worship the same idols your ancestors did? Or since you're living on land that once belonged to the Amorites, maybe you'll worship their gods. I won't. My family and I are going to worship and obey the [Lord]!

16 The people answered:
We could never worship other gods or stop worshiping the [Lord]. 17 The [Lord] is our God. We were slaves in Egypt as our ancestors had been, but we saw the [Lord] work miracles to set our people free and to bring us out of Egypt. Even though other nations were all around us, the [Lord] protected us wherever we went.

18 And when we fought the Amorites and the other nations that lived in this land, the [Lord] made them run away. Yes, we will worship and obey the [Lord], because the [Lord] is our God.

19 Joshua said:
The [Lord] is fearsome; he is the one true God, and I don't think you are able to worship and obey him in the ways he demands. You would have to be completely faithful, and if you sin or rebel, he won't let you get away with it.

20 If you turn your backs on the [Lord] and worship the gods of other nations, the [Lord] will turn against you. He will make terrible things happen to you and wipe you out, even though he had been good to you before.

21 But the people shouted, “We won't worship any other gods. We will worship and obey only the [Lord]!”

22 Joshua said, “You have heard yourselves say that you will worship and obey the [Lord]. Isn't that true?”
“Yes, it's true,” they answered.

23 Joshua said, “But you still have some idols, like those the other nations worship. Get rid of your idols! You must decide once and for all that you really want to obey the [Lord] God of Israel.”

24 The people said, “The [Lord] is our God, and we will worship and obey only him.”
25 Joshua helped Israel make an agreement with the [Lord] that day at Shechem. Joshua made laws for Israel 26 and wrote them down in The Book of the Law of Godt. Then he set up a large stone under the oak tree at the place of worship in Shechem

27 and told the people, “Look at this stone. It has heard everything that the [Lord] has said to us. Our God can call this stone as a witness if we ever reject him.”

28 Joshua sent everyone back to their homes.

Joshua, Joseph, and Eleazar //Are Buried

30 t The Israelites buried him in his own land at Timnath-Serah, north of Mount Gaash in the hill country of Ephraim.

31 As long as Joshua lived, Israel worshiped and obeyed the [Lord]. There were other leaders old enough to remember everything that the [Lord] had done for Israel. And for as long as these men lived, Israel continued to worship and obey the [Lord].

32  t When the people of Israel left Egypt, they brought the bones of Joseph along with them. They took the bones to the town of Shechem and buried them in the field that Jacob had bought for 100 pieces of silvert from Hamor, the founder of Shechem. The town and the field botht became part of the land belonging to the descendants of Joseph.
33 When Eleazar the priestt died, he was buried in the hill country of Ephraim on a hill that belonged to his son Phinehas.