Joshua 23

A long time later, once God had enabled the Israelites to live peacefully, with none of the surrounding nations threatening them, Joshua had become very old.

Joshua then called for all of Israel’s elders, leaders, judges, and officials to come and listen to him. When they arrived, he told them, “I am now very old.

You have seen how, for your sake, God defeated all of these enemy people groups. God our God has fought for us. \*

I am telling you now that you will be able to defeat the nations that still remain. Their lands will also become the permanent possession of your tribes. You will have all of the land from the Jordan River {in the east} to the Great Sea in the west, including the land of the nations I defeated when I was commanding the Israelite army.

God your God will enable you to defeat them, and he will force those people to leave their lands. Then you will be able to live there, just as he promised you would. \*

But you must be very careful to obey everything that Moses wrote in the Book of the Law. Do not disobey anything that he wrote.

Do not make friends with any of the people groups that are still in this land. Do not pray to their gods, and do not make oaths using the names of their gods. Do not worship those gods, and do not bow down to them.

Instead, remain loyal to God your God, as you have been doing. \*

God has forced many very strong nations to leave so that you could live here. From the time you entered this land until now, no one has been able to resist you.

It is as if one of your soldiers can make a thousand enemy soldiers run away. That is because God your God is fighting for you as he promised to do.

But you must be very careful to keep loving God your God. \*

Suppose you become disloyal to God and make friends with the people groups that are still living in this land. Suppose you let your daughters marry their sons and your sons marry their daughters. Suppose you regularly do things together.

I can assure you that if you do that, God your God will no longer force them to leave so that you can live here. They will become like different kinds of traps that will catch you. They will become like whips that hurt your skin. They will become like thorns that stick you in the eye. Your people group will become weaker and weaker until none of you live any longer in this good land that God your God has given to you. \*

It is almost time for me to die, as everyone else does. You know deep within you that God he has done every single thing he promised to do for you.

He has given to you all the good things that he promised to give you. However, if you do these wrong things that I have described, he will just as surely make the bad things happen to you that he also described. None of you will still be living in this good land that God your God has given to you. \*

Suppose you do not obey the covenant that God made with you. Suppose you go and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then God will become very angry with you. Very soon none of you will be living any longer in this good land that he has given to you.” \*