Joshua 24

Joshua brought all of the Israelites together in the city of Shechem. Their elders, leaders, judges, and officials all reported there in the presence of God.

Joshua told all the Israelites, “This is what God, the God we Israelite people worship, wants me to tell you: ‘Long ago, your ancestors, including Abraham’s father Terah and Abraham’s younger brother Nahor, lived far beyond the Euphrates River. There they worshiped other gods. \*

But I took your ancestor Abraham from beyond the Euphrates River, and I led him into the land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants through his son Isaac.

I gave Isaac his own sons, Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to live in. But I sent Jacob and his children down to Egypt, and they lived there for many years. \*

{When the Egyptians made your ancestors slaves,} I sent Moses and his brother Aaron to Egypt {to rescue them}. I caused many terrible plagues that made the people of Egypt suffer. After that, I brought your people out of Egypt.

When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, they came to the sea. The Egyptian army pursued them with chariots and on horseback as far as the Sea of Reeds. \*

Then you pleaded with me to help you, and I caused darkness to come between you Israelites and the Egyptian army. {I made a dry path through the sea so that the Israelites could go through it, but when the Egyptians tried to follow them,} I made the water come back and it covered the Egyptian army {so all the soldiers drowned}. You Israelites saw what I did to the Egyptians. After that you lived in the desert for many years. \*

Then I brought you to the land where the Amorites lived, on the east side of the Jordan River. They attacked you, but I enabled you to defeat them and capture their land. You saw everything that I did for you. \*

Then Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, prepared his army and attacked Israel. He sent for Balaam son of Beor and told him to get me to curse your people.

But I would not do what Balaam asked. Instead, I made him bless you, so that he was not able to harm you. \*

Then you all crossed the Jordan River and came to Jericho. The army of Jericho fought against you, as did the armies of the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I enabled you to conquer them all.

I sent swarms of hornets ahead of you, and this helped you two Amorite kings. You did not do this with your own weapons. {I, God, was the one who actually defeated them.} \*

So I gave you a land that you had not cleared or plowed, and I gave you cities that you did not build. Now you live in those cities, and you eat the grapes from grapevines that you did not plant and olives from trees that you did not plant.’ \*

{That was what God wanted me, Joshua, to tell all of you.} Now you must worship God and obey him genuinely and consistently. Throw away the idols that your ancestors worshiped when they lived on the far side of the Euphrates River and when they lived in Egypt. Worship God alone.

Now if you do not want to worship God, then you must decide today what gods you will worship. You may decide that you want to worship the gods that your ancestors worshiped when they lived on the other side of the Euphrates River. You may decide that you want to worship the gods that the Amorites worshiped who used to live in this land. But as for me and my family, we will worship God.” \*

The Israelites responded, “We would never abandon God and worship other gods!

God is our God! After all, he was the one who brought our ancestors here from Egypt. He rescued them from that land where they were slaves. We saw him perform great miracles, and he protected us when we were traveling, even though we had to pass through the territory of many other nations.

God forced all the people who were here to leave so that we could live here. He defeated the Amorites who lived in this land. So we will worship only God. He is our God.” \*

But Joshua replied to the people, “You do not seem to realize what is involved in worshiping God! He is a holy God, and he will not allow you to worship any other gods. He will not overlook it if you break his laws or sin against him.

If you abandon God and worship other gods, then he will stop helping you and instead he will harm you until he has destroyed you. He will do that even after he has done such good things for you.” \*

But the people answered Joshua, “Even so, we want to worship God.”

Then Joshua said, “You are making a promise to what you have said. You have chosen God, and you are promising to worship him alone.” They replied, “Yes, that is what we promise to do.”

So Joshua told them, “Then you must throw away any other idols you have, and devote yourselves entirely to God, the God who has done so much for us Israelites.” \*

The people replied, “We will worship God as our God, and we will obey what he tells us to do.”

On that same day, Joshua made a covenant with the people. There at Shechem, he wrote down for them all the decrees and laws that God commanded them to obey.

He wrote all those things down in the book of the law of God. Then he got a large stone and set it up there at Shechem, under the large oak tree that grew beside the place where God’s sacred tent was. \*

Joshua told all the people, “Look! This stone will always be a reminder to us. This is the place where I told you what God wanted to say to you {and you promised that you would serve him}. This stone will remind you of your promise so that you are not disloyal to God.”

Then Joshua sent the people back to their homes in the places that the leaders had assigned to them. \*

After this, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of God, died. He was 110 years old when he died.

The Israelites buried his body on his own property in Timnath Serah. That is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. \*

The people of Israel continued to worship God during Joshua’s lifetime and during the lifetimes of the elders who outlived Joshua. Those elders had seen everything that God had done for Israel. \*

The people of Israel had brought Joseph’s bones with them when they left Egypt. Now they buried his bones at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob had bought long ago for the price of 100 pieces of silver. He had bought it from Hamor, the father of Shechem. That piece of land became a permanent possession for Joseph’s descendants.

Eleazar son of Aaron also died. The Israelites buried his body at Gibeah, the city that belonged to his son Phinehas, in the hill country of Ephraim.