Joshua 24
The Covenant at Shechem
Then 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. 2 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: a‘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 bthey served other gods. 3 aThen 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 bgave him Isaac. 4 To Isaac I gave aJacob and Esau. To bEsau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, cbut Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. 5 aAlso I sent Moses and Aaron, and bI plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.
6 ‘Then I abrought 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 adarkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And byour eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness ca long time. 8 And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, aand 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 aBalak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and bsent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. 10 aBut I would not listen to Balaam; btherefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. 11 Then ayou went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And bthe 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 aI sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but bnot with your sword or with your bow. 13 I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and acities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’
14 a“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 the River and din Egypt. Serve the Lord! 15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, achoose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether bthe gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or cthe gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. dBut 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. aWe also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”
19 But Joshua said to the people, a“You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a bholy God. He is ca jealous God; dHe will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. 20 aIf you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, bthen 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 ayou have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.”
And they said, “We are witnesses!”
23 “Now therefore,” he said, a“put away the foreign gods which are among you, and bincline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.”
24 And the people asaid to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”
25 So Joshua amade a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance bin Shechem.
26 Then Joshua awrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took ba large stone, and cset it up there dunder the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. 27 And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be aa witness to us, for bit 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 aJoshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.
Death of Joshua and Eleazar
29 aNow 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 aTimnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.
31 aIsrael served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had bknown all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.
32 aThe bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground bwhich 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 aEleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to bPhinehas his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson.
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