Study Desk

They answered Joshua, “Everything you have commanded us we will do, and everywhere you send us we will go.

Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two men as spies from the Acacia Grove, saying, “Go and scout the land, especially Jericho.” So they left, and they came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab, and stayed there.

Then the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab and said, “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, for they came to investigate the entire land.”

But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I didn’t know where they were from.

At nightfall, when the city gate was about to close, the men went out, and I don’t know where they were going. Chase after them quickly, and you can catch up with them!”

The men pursued them along the road to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as they left to pursue them, the city gate was shut.

“Let it be as you say,” she replied, and she sent them away. After they had gone, she tied the scarlet cord to the window.

So the two men went into the hill country and stayed there three days until the pursuers had returned. They searched all along the way, but did not find them.

Then the men returned, came down from the hill country, and crossed the Jordan. They went to Joshua son of Nun and reported everything that had happened to them.

Joshua started early the next morning and left the Acacia Grove with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan and stayed there before crossing.

Then he said to the priests, “Carry the ark of the covenant and go on ahead of the people.” So they carried the ark of the covenant and went ahead of them.

The Israelites did just as Joshua had commanded them. The twelve men took stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each of the Israelite tribes, just as the Lord had told Joshua. They carried them to the camp and set them down there.

On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they revered him throughout his life, as they had revered Moses.

When all the Amorite kings across the Jordan to the west and all the Canaanite kings near the sea heard how the Lord had dried up the water of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, they lost heart and their courage failed because of the Israelites.

For the Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years until all the nation’s men of war who came out of Egypt had died off because they did not obey the Lord. So the Lord vowed never to let them see the land he had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

The day after Passover they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land.

And the day after they ate from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. Since there was no more manna for the Israelites, they ate from the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

So the ark of the Lord was carried around the city, circling it once. They returned to the camp and spent the night there.

On the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

Early on the seventh day, they started at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same way. That was the only day they marched around the city seven times.