Be very strong! Carefully obey all that is written in the law scroll of Moses so you won't swerve from it to the right or the left,

"The Lord drove out from before you great and mighty nations; no one has been able to resist you to this very day.

One of you makes a thousand run away, for the Lord your God fights for you as he promised you he would.

"Look, today I am about to die. You know with all your heart and being that not even one of all the faithful promises the Lord your God made to you is left unfulfilled; every one was realized -- not one promise is unfulfilled!

But in the same way every faithful promise the Lord your God made to you has been realized, it is just as certain, if you disobey, that the Lord will bring on you every judgment until he destroys you from this good land which the Lord your God gave you.

Joshua told all the people, "Here is what the Lord God of Israel says: 'In the distant past your ancestors lived beyond the Euphrates River, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. They worshiped other gods,

I sent Moses and Aaron, and I struck Egypt down when I intervened in their land. Then I brought you out.

When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you arrived at the sea. The Egyptians chased your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.

Your fathers cried out for help to the Lord; he made the area between you and the Egyptians dark, and then drowned them in the sea. You witnessed with your very own eyes what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness for a long time.

Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, launched an attack against Israel. He summoned Balaam son of Beor to call down judgment on you.

I gave you a land in which you had not worked hard; you took up residence in cities you did not build and you are eating the produce of vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.'

Now obey the Lord and worship him with integrity and loyalty. Put aside the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and worship the Lord.

If you have no desire to worship the Lord, choose today whom you will worship, whether it be the gods whom your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family will worship the Lord!"

For the Lord our God took us and our fathers out of slavery in the land of Egypt and performed these awesome miracles before our very eyes. He continually protected us as we traveled and when we passed through nations.

The Lord drove out from before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. So we too will worship the Lord, for he is our God!"

If you abandon the Lord and worship foreign gods, he will turn against you; he will bring disaster on you and destroy you, though he once treated you well."

That day Joshua drew up an agreement for the people, and he established rules and regulations for them in Shechem.

Joshua wrote these words in the Law Scroll of God. He then took a large stone and set it up there under the oak tree near the Lord's shrine.

When Joshua dismissed the people, they went to their allotted portions of land.

After all this Joshua son of Nun, the Lord's servant, died at the age of one hundred ten.

They buried him in his allotted territory in Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the part of the field that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of money. So it became the inheritance of the tribe of Joseph.

Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him in Gibeah in the hill country of Ephraim, where his son Phinehas had been assigned land.