'Us' in the Bible

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

and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you.

that you will spare the lives of my father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all who belong to them, and save us from death.”

The men answered her, “We will give our lives for yours. If you don’t report our mission, we will show kindness and faithfulness to you when the Lord gives us the land.”

The men said to her, “We will be free from this oath you made us swear,

unless, when we enter the land, you tie this scarlet cord to the window through which you let us down. Bring your father, mother, brothers, and all your father’s family into your house.

And if you report our mission, we are free from the oath you made us swear.”

They told Joshua, “The Lord has handed over the entire land to us. Everyone who lives in the land is also panicking because of us.”

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, just as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over.

For the Israelites wandered in the wilderness 40 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.

When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached Him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies?”

“Oh, Lord God,” Joshua said, “why did You ever bring these people across the Jordan to hand us over to the Amorites for our destruction? If only we had been content to remain on the other side of the Jordan!

When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will You do about Your great name?”

Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? Today the Lord will trouble you!” So all Israel stoned them to death. They burned their bodies, threw stones on them,

Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. When they come out against us as they did the first time, we will flee from them.

They will come after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are fleeing from us as before.’ While we are fleeing from them,

They went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land. Please make a treaty with us.”

The men of Israel replied to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live among us. How can we make a treaty with you?”

So our elders and all the inhabitants of our land told us, ‘Take provisions with you for the journey; go and meet them and say, “We are your servants. Please make a treaty with us.”’

This is how we will treat them: we will let them live, so that no wrath will fall on us because of the oath we swore to them.”

Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said to them, “Why did you deceive us by telling us you live far away from us, when in fact you live among us?

Now we are in your hands. Do to us whatever you think is right.”

Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: “Don’t abandon your servants. Come quickly and save us! Help us, for all the Amorite kings living in the hill country have joined forces against us.”

They came before Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leaders, saying, “The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our male relatives.” So they gave them an inheritance among their father’s brothers, in keeping with the Lord’s instruction.

Joseph’s descendants said to Joshua, “Why did you give us only one tribal allotment as an inheritance? We have many people, because the Lord has been blessing us greatly.”

But the descendants of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who inhabit the valley area have iron chariots, both at Beth-shean with its towns and in the Jezreel Valley.”

Wasn’t the sin of Peor, which brought a plague on the Lord’s community, enough for us, so that we have not cleansed ourselves from it even to this day,

But if the land you possess is defiled, cross over to the land the Lord possesses where the Lord’s tabernacle stands, and take possession of it among us. But don’t rebel against the Lord or against us by building for yourselves an altar other than the altar of the Lord our God.

“Yahweh is the God of gods! Yahweh is the God of gods! He knows, and may Israel also know. Do not spare us today, if it was in rebellion or treachery against the Lord

that we have built for ourselves an altar to turn away from Him. May the Lord Himself hold us accountable if we intended to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings on it, or to sacrifice fellowship offerings on it.

For the Lord has made the Jordan a border between us and you descendants of Reuben and Gad. You have no share in the Lord!’ So your descendants may cause our descendants to stop fearing the Lord.

“Therefore we said: Let us take action and build an altar for ourselves, but not for burnt offering or sacrifice.

Instead, it is to be a witness between us and you, and between the generations after us, so that we may carry out the worship of the Lord in His presence with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and fellowship offerings. Then in the future, your descendants will not be able to say to our descendants, ‘You have no share in the Lord!’

We thought that if they said this to us or to our generations in the future, we would reply: Look at the replica of the Lord’s altar that our fathers made, not for burnt offering or sacrifice, but as a witness between us and you.

Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, “Today we know that the Lord is among us, because you have not committed this treachery against Him. As a result, you have delivered the Israelites from the Lord’s power.”

So the Reubenites and Gadites named the altar: It is a witness between us that the Lord is God.

For the Lord our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery, and performed these great signs before our eyes. He also protected us all along the way we went and among all the peoples whose lands we traveled through.

The Lord drove out before us all the peoples, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will worship the Lord, because He is our God.”

And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone—it will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words the Lord said to us, and it will be a witness against you, so that you will not deny your God.”