Joshua Reviews Israel’s History
And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem; and he called the elders of Israel, and its heads, and its judges, and its officers; and they presented themselves before God.
And Joshua said to all the people: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Across the River your fathers lived long ago — Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor — and they served other gods.
And I took your father Abraham from across the River, and I led him through all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his seed and gave him Isaac.
And I gave to Isaac Jacob and Esau; and I gave to Esau Mount Seir, to possess it; and Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.
And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I struck Egypt with plagues, as I did in its midst; and afterward I brought you out.
And I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and Egypt pursued after your fathers with chariots and with horsemen to the Sea of Reeds.
And they cried out to the LORD, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness many days.
And I brought you to the land of the Amorite, who lived across the Jordan; and they fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you possessed their land, and I destroyed them from before you.
And Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, rose and fought against Israel; and he sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you.
But I was not willing to listen to Balaam; and he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you from his hand.
And you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the masters of Jericho fought against you — the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite — and I gave them into your hand.
And I sent the hornet before you, and it drove them out from before you — the two kings of the Amorite — not by your sword and not by your bow.
And I gave you a land for which you did not labor, and cities that you did not build, and you have lived in them; of vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant, you are eating.
Choose Whom You Will Serve
And now, fear the LORD, and serve him in wholeness and in truth; and remove the gods that your fathers served across the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve — whether the gods that your fathers served, who were across the River, or the gods of the Amorite in whose land you are living. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
And the people answered and said: “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD, to serve other gods!
For the LORD our God, he is the one who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves, and who did these great signs before our eyes, and kept us in all the way in which we walked, and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed.
And the LORD drove out from before us all the peoples, and the Amorite who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”
And Joshua said to the people: “You cannot serve the LORD — for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not bear your transgression and your sins.
If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you evil and finish you, after he has done you good.”
And the people said to Joshua, “No — for the LORD we will serve.”
And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen the LORD, to serve him.” And they said, “Witnesses!”
“And now, remove the foreign gods that are in your midst, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.”
And the people said to Joshua, “The LORD our God we will serve, and to his voice we will listen.”
And Joshua cut a covenant for the people on that day, and set for them a statute and a judgment at Shechem.
And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the instruction of God; and he took a great stone and set it up there, under the oak that was in the sanctuary of the LORD.
And Joshua said to all the people: “Look — this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the sayings of the LORD that he spoke with us; and it shall be a witness against you, so that you do not deny your God.”
And Joshua sent the people away, each to his inheritance.
Joshua’s Death and Burial
And it was, after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, a hundred and ten years old.
And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance, at Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who lived long after Joshua, and who knew all the work of the LORD that he had done for Israel.
And the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel had brought up from Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the portion of the field that Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of money; and they became an inheritance for the sons of Joseph.
And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him at Gibeah of Phinehas his son, which had been given to him in the hill country of Ephraim.