At this point, the LORD told Joshua, "Today I'm going to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so they'll be sure that I'm going to be with you just as I was with Moses.

Then the LORD told Joshua, "Today I have rolled the disgrace of Egypt away from you." That's why that place is called "Gilgal" to this day.

Joshua announced, "Why did you bring trouble to us? Today the LORD is bringing trouble to you!" So all Israel stoned him to death, incinerated them, and buried them with stones,

"Look how the LORD has let me survive, as you can see, these 45 years since the time when the LORD said this through Moses, while Israel was wandering through the wilderness. And look! I'm here today my eighty-fifth birthday!

I'm still as strong today as I was the day Moses commissioned me. I'm as strong today as I was then, and I can go out to battle and come back successful.

Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Jephunneh the Kenizzite's son Caleb, and it remains so today, because he fully followed the LORD God of Israel.

"This is what the entire community of the LORD has to say: "What is this treacherous act by which you have acted deceitfully against the God of Israel by turning away from following the LORD today, and by building yourselves an altar today, so you can rebel against the LORD?

Now then, are you turning away from following the LORD today? If you rebel against the LORD today, by tomorrow he will be angry with the entire community of Israel.

"The God of gods, the LORD, the God of gods, the LORD is the one who knows! And may Israel itself be aware that if this was an act of rebellion or an act of treachery against the LORD, may he not deliver us today!

May we never rebel against the LORD today by building an altar for burnt offerings, for grain offerings, or for sacrifice to replace the altar of the LORD our God which stands before his Tent."'"

So Eleazar's son Phinehas the priest replied to the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the descendants of Manasseh, "Today we've demonstrated that the LORD is among us, because you have not acted treacherously against the LORD. Now you have delivered the Israelis from the anger of the LORD."

Instead, you are to hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done today,

"Look here: today I'm going down the path that everyone on earth takes, and you know with all your hearts and souls that not a single word of all of the good things that the LORD your God spoke about you has failed to happen. Everything has been fulfilled about you not one of them has failed.

If you think it's the wrong thing for you to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves today whom you will serve the gods whom your ancestors served on the other side of the Euphrates River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose territories you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."