Only take heart and be very strong; take care to do all the law which Moses my servant gave you, not turning from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may do well in all your undertakings.

Let this book of the law be ever on your lips and in your thoughts day and night, so that you may keep with care everything in it; then a blessing will be on all your way, and you will do well.

Keep in mind what Moses, the servant of the Lord, said to you, The Lord your God is sending you rest and will give you this land.

Till the Lord has given your brothers rest, as he has given it to you, and they have taken their heritage in the land which the Lord your God is giving them: then you will go back to the land of your heritage which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the east side of Jordan.

Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men from Shittim secretly, with the purpose of searching out the land, and Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a loose woman of the town, named Rahab, where they took their rest for the night.

And it was said to the king of Jericho, See, some men have come here tonight from the children of Israel with the purpose of searching out the land.

Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Send out the men who have come to you and are in your house; for they have come with the purpose of searching out all the land.

And the woman took the two men and put them in a secret place; then she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I had no idea where they came from;

And when it was the time for shutting the doors at dark, they went out; I have no idea where the men went: but if you go after them quickly, you will overtake them.

But she had taken them up to the roof, covering them with the stems of flax which she had put out in order there.

So the men went after them on the road to Jordan as far as the river-crossing: and when they had gone out after them, the door into the town was shut.

And said to them, It is clear to me that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has come on us;

For we have had news of how the Lord made the Red Sea dry before you when you came out of Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, on the other side of Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you gave up to the curse.

Then if anyone goes out of your house into the street, his blood will be on his head, we will not be responsible; but if any damage comes to anyone in the house, his blood will be on our heads.

And she said, Let it be as you say. Then she sent them away, and they went; and she put the bright red cord in the window.

Then the two men came down from the hill-country and went over and came back to Joshua, the son of Nun; and they gave him a complete account of what had taken place.

And at the end of three days, the men in authority over the people went through the tents,

Giving the people their orders, and saying, When you see the ark of the agreement of the Lord your God lifted up by the priests, the Levites, then get up from your places and go after it;

But let there be a space between you and it of about two thousand cubits: come no nearer to it, so that you may see the way you have to go, for you have not been over this way before.

And Joshua said, By this you will see that the living God is among you, and that he will certainly send out from before you the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Hivite and the Perizzite and the Girgashite and the Amorite and the Jebusite.

So take twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, a man from every tribe.

So when the people went out from their tents to go over Jordan, the priests who took up the ark of the agreement were in front of the people;

Then the waters flowing down from higher up were stopped and came together in a mass a long way back at Adam, a town near Zarethan; and the waters flowing down to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were cut off: and the people went across opposite Jericho.

So Joshua sent for the twelve men, whom he had ready, one man out of every tribe of the children of Israel,

So that this may be a sign among you; when your children say to you in time to come, What is the reason for these stones?

Then you will say to them, Because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the Lord's agreement; when it went over Jordan the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones will be a sign for the children of Israel, keeping it in their memory for ever.

Give orders to the priests who take up the ark of witness, to come up out of Jordan.

So Joshua gave orders to the priests, saying, Come up now out of Jordan.

And when the priests who took up the ark of the Lord's agreement came up out of Jordan and their feet came out on to dry land, the waters of Jordan went back to their place, overflowing its edges as before.

So on the tenth day of the first month the people came up out of Jordan, and put up their tents in Gilgal, on the east side of Jericho.

And the twelve stones which they took out of Jordan, Joshua put up in Gilgal.

And he said to the children of Israel, When your children say to their fathers in time to come, What is the reason for these stones?

For the Lord your God made the waters of Jordan dry before you till you had gone across, as he did to the Red Sea, drying it up before us till we had gone across:

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make yourself stone knives and give the children of Israel circumcision a second time.

So Joshua made stone knives and gave the children of Israel circumcision at Gibeath-ha-araloth.

And this is the reason why Joshua did so: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the fighting-men, had been overtaken by death in the waste land on the way, after they came out of Egypt.

All the people who came out had undergone circumcision; but all the people whose birth had taken place in the waste land on their journey from Egypt had not.

For the children of Israel were wandering in the waste land for forty years, till all the nation, that is, all the fighting-men, who had come out of Egypt, were dead, because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: to whom the Lord said, with an oath, that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had given his word to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

And their children, who came up in their place, now underwent circumcision by the hands of Joshua, not having had it before: for there had been no circumcision on the journey.

And he said, No; but I have come as captain of the armies of the Lord. Then Joshua, falling down with his face to the earth in worship, said, What has my lord to say to his servant?

(Now Jericho was all shut up because of the children of Israel: there was no going out or coming in.)

Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.

And at the sound of a long note on the horns, let all the people give a loud cry; and the wall of the town will come down flat, and all the people are to go straight forward.

And to the people Joshua gave an order, saying, You will give no cry, and make no sound, and let no word go out of your mouth till the day when I say, Give a loud cry; then give a loud cry.

Then on the seventh day they got up early, at the dawn of the day, and went round the town in the same way, but that day they went round it seven times.

And the seventh time, at the sound of the priests' horns, Joshua said to the people, Now give a loud cry; for the Lord has given you the town.

And the town will be put to the curse, and everything in it will be given to the Lord: only Rahab, the loose woman, and all who are in the house with her, will be kept safe, because she kept secret the men we sent.

And as for you, keep yourselves from the cursed thing, for fear that you may get a desire for it and take some of it for yourselves, and so be the cause of a curse and great trouble on the tents of Israel.

Then Joshua said to the two men who had been sent to make a search through the land, Go into the house of the loose woman, and get her out, and all who are with her, as you gave her your oath.

So the searchers went in and got out Rahab and her father and mother and her brothers and all she had, and they got out all her family; and they took them outside the tents of Israel.

Then, after burning up the town and everything in it, they put the silver and gold and the vessels of brass and iron into the store-house of the Lord's house.

Then Joshua gave the people orders with an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed before the Lord who puts his hand to the building up of this town: with the loss of his first son will he put the first stone of it in place, and with the loss of his youngest son he will put up its doors.

Then they came back to Joshua and said to him, Do not send all the people up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and make an attack on Ai; there is no need for all the people to be tired with the journey there, for it is only a small town.

And Joshua said, O Lord God, why have you taken us over Jordan only to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction? If only it had been enough for us to keep on the other side of Jordan!

O Lord, what am I to say now that Israel have given way before their attackers?

For when the news comes to the Canaanites and all the people of the land, they will come up, shutting us in and cutting off our name from the earth: and what will you do for the honour of your great name?

Then the Lord said to Joshua, Get up; what are you doing with your face to the earth?

Israel has done wrong, sinning against the agreement which I made with them: they have even taken of the cursed thing; acting falsely like thieves they have put it among their goods.

So in the morning you are to come near, tribe by tribe; and the tribe marked out by the Lord is to come near, family by family; and the family marked out by the Lord is to come near, house by house; and the house marked out by the Lord is to come near, man by man.

And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give glory and praise to the Lord, the God of Israel; give me word now of what you have done, and keep nothing back from me.

And Achan, answering, said to Joshua, Truly I have done wrong against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I have done:

When I saw among their goods a fair robe of Babylon and two hundred shekels of silver, and a mass of gold, fifty shekels in weight, I was overcome by desire and took them; and they are put away in the earth in my tent, and the silver is under it.

So Joshua sent men quickly, and looking in his tent, they saw where the robe had been put away secretly with the silver under it.

So Joshua and the fighting-men got ready to go up against Ai; and Joshua took thirty thousand men of war, and sent them out by night.

And he gave them their orders, saying, Go and take up your position secretly at the back of the town: do not go very far away, and let all of you be ready:

And I and all the people with me will come near the town, and when they come out against us as they did before, we will go in flight from them;

And they will come out after us, till we have got them away from the town; for they will say, They have gone in flight from us as before; so we will go in flight before them;

Then you will get up from your secret position and take the town, for the Lord your God will give it up into your hands.

And when you have taken the town, put fire to it, as the Lord has said: see, I have given you your orders.

So Joshua sent them out: and they took up a secret position between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua kept with the people that night.

Now when the king of Ai saw it, he got up quickly and went out to war against Israel, he and all his people, to the slope going down to the valley; but he had no idea that a secret force was waiting at the back of the town.

There was not a man in Ai and Beth-el who did not go out after Israel; and the town was open and unwatched while they went after Israel.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Let your spear be stretched out against Ai; for I will give it into your hands. So Joshua took up his spear, stretching it out in the direction of the town.

Then the secret force came quickly from their place, and running forward when they saw his hand stretched out, went into the town and took it, and put fire to it straight away.

Then the other force came out of the town against them, so that they were being attacked on this side and on that: and Israel overcame them and let not one of them get away with his life.

Then, after the destruction of all the people of Ai in the field and in the waste land where they went after them, and when all the people had been put to death without mercy, all Israel went back to Ai, and put to death all who were in it without mercy.

So Joshua gave Ai to the flames, and made it a waste mass of stones for ever, as it is to this day.

And he put the king of Ai to death, hanging him on a tree till evening: and when the sun went down, Joshua gave them orders to take his body down from the tree, and put it in the public place of the town, covering it with a great mass of stones, which is there to this day.

In the way ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, as it is recorded in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, untouched by any iron instrument: and on it they made burned offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord.

And he made there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, writing it before the eyes of the children of Israel.

And all Israel, those who were Israelites by birth, as well as the men from other lands living with them, and their responsible men and their overseers and judges, took their places round the ark, in front of the priests, the Levites, whose work it was to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement; half of them were stationed in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, in agreement with the orders for the blessing of the children of Israel which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given.

And after, he gave them all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, as it is all recorded in the book of the law;

And the men of Gibeon, hearing what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,

And they came to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, We have come from a far country: so now make an agreement with us.

And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, It may be that you are living among us; how then may we make an agreement with you?

And what he did to the two kings of the Amorites east of Jordan, to Sihon, king of Heshbon, and to Og, king of Bashan, at Ashtaroth.

This bread which we have with us for our food, we took warm and new from our houses when starting on our journey to you; but now see, it has become dry and broken up.

This is what we will do to them: we will not put them to death, for fear that wrath may come on us because of our oath to them.

Keep them living, and let them be servants, cutting wood and getting water for all the people. And all the people did as the chiefs had said to them.

Now because of this you are cursed, and you will for ever be our servants, cutting wood and getting water for the house of my God.

And, answering Joshua, they said, Because it came to the ears of your servants that the Lord your God had given orders to his servant Moses to give you all this land, and to send destruction on all the people living in it, because of you; so, fearing greatly for our lives because of you, we have done this.

And that day Joshua made them servants, cutting wood and getting water for the people and for the altar of the Lord, in the place marked out by him, to this day.

Now when it came to the ears of Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, that Joshua had taken Ai, and had given it up to the curse (for as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king); and that the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living among them;

He was in great fear, because Gibeon was a great town, like one of the king's towns, greater than Ai, and all the men in it were men of war.

So the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, were banded together, and went up with all their armies and took up their position before Gibeon and made war against it.

And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, saying, Be not slow to send help to your servants; come up quickly to our support and keep us safe: for all the kings of the Amorites from the hill-country have come together against us.

And the Lord made them full of fear before Israel, and they put great numbers of them to death at Gibeon, and went after them by the way going up to Beth-horon, driving them back to Azekah and Makkedah

It was on the day when the Lord gave up the Amorites into the hands of the children of Israel that Joshua said to the Lord, before the eyes of Israel, Sun, be at rest over Gibeon; and you, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.

And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.

And there was no day like that, before it or after it, when the Lord gave ear to the voice of a man; for the Lord was fighting for Israel.