Study Desk

He said to them, "Go out into the river where the Holy Box of the Lord your God is. Each of you must find one rock. There will be one rock for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Carry that rock on your shoulder.

The men from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh obeyed Moses. These men crossed the river in front of the other people. These men were prepared for war. They were going to help the rest of the Israelites take the land God had promised to give them.

The Lord your God caused the water in the Jordan River to stop flowing so that you could cross it on dry land—just as the Lord had stopped the water at the Red Sea so that we could cross it on dry land.

The Lord did this so that all the people in this country would know that he is very powerful. Then they will always be afraid of the Lord your God."

But the Israelites did not obey God. There was a man from the tribe of Judah named Achan son of Carmi, grandson of Zimri, great-grandson of Zerah. Achan kept some of the things that should have been destroyed. So the Lord became very angry with the Israelites.

Joshua said, "Lord God , you brought our people across the Jordan River. Why did you bring us this far and then allow the Amorites to destroy us? We should have been satisfied and stayed on the other side of the Jordan River.

"Now go and make the people pure. Tell them, ‘Make yourselves pure. Prepare for tomorrow. The Lord , the God of Israel, says that some people are keeping things that he commanded to be destroyed. You will never be able to defeat your enemies until you throw away those things.

Then Joshua said to Achan, "Son, you must honor the Lord , the God of Israel. Praise him and confess your sins to him. Tell me what you did, and don't try to hide anything from me."

Achan answered, "It is true! I sinned against the Lord , the God of Israel. This is what I did:

Then you should come out of your hiding place and take control of the city. The Lord your God will give you the power to win.

Then Joshua built an altar for the Lord , the God of Israel. He built the altar on Mount Ebal.

The men answered, "We are your servants. We have come from a faraway country. We came because we heard of the great power of the Lord your God. We heard about what he has done and about everything he did in Egypt.

But the army of Israel did not try to fight against those cities. They had made a peace agreement with them. They had made a promise to them before the Lord , the God of Israel. All the people complained against the leaders who made the agreement.

But the leaders answered, "We have given our promise. We promised before the Lord , the God of Israel. We cannot fight against them now.

This is what we must do. We must let them live. We cannot hurt them or God will be angry with us because we broke the promise we made to them.

Now, your people will have many troubles. All of your people will be slaves—they will have to cut wood and carry water for the house of God."

The Gibeonites answered, "We lied to you because we were afraid you would kill us. We heard that God commanded his servant Moses to give you all this land. And God told you to kill all the people who lived in this land. That is why we lied to you.

But don't stay there yourselves. Continue chasing the enemy and attacking them from behind. Don't let the enemy get back to their cities. The Lord your God has given you the victory over them."

So Joshua defeated all the kings of the cities of the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills, and the eastern foothills. The Lord , the God of Israel, had told Joshua to kill all the people, so Joshua did not leave anyone alive in those places.

Joshua captured all these cities and their kings in one series of battles. He did this because the Lord , the God of Israel, was fighting for Israel.