Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it?

Keep his statutes and commandments that I am setting forth today so that it may go well with you and your descendants and that you may enjoy longevity in the land that the Lord your God is about to give you as a permanent possession.

Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: "Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them!

Honor your father and your mother just as the Lord your God has commanded you to do, so that your days may be extended and that it may go well with you in the land that he is about to give you.

But as for you, remain here with me so I can declare to you all the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that you are to teach them, so that they can carry them out in the land I am about to give them."

You must destroy all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you because you would not obey him.

Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications.

They include the Anakites, a numerous and tall people whom you know about and of whom it is said, "Who is able to resist the Anakites?"

Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn people!

Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will close up the sky so that it does not rain. The land will not yield its produce, and you will soon be removed from the good land that the Lord is about to give you.

For you are about to cross the Jordan to possess the land the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess and inhabit it.

You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods -- on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

When it is reported to you and you hear about it, you must investigate carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done in Israel,

Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you.

Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. In this way you will purge out wickedness from among you, and all Israel will hear about it and be afraid.

For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat your enemies for you. Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

You may lend with interest to a foreigner, but not to your fellow Israelite; if you keep this command the Lord your God will bless you in all you undertake in the land you are about to enter to possess.

You must have an accurate and correct stone weight and an accurate and correct measuring container, so that your life may be extended in the land the Lord your God is about to give you.

So when you cross the Jordan you must erect on Mount Ebal these stones about which I am commanding you today, and you must cover them with plaster.

The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess.

Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it.

This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess.

Then all the nations will ask, "Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger all about?"

What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess.

He said to them, "Today I am a hundred and twenty years old. I am no longer able to get about, and the Lord has said to me, 'You will not cross the Jordan.'

As for the Lord your God, he is about to cross over before you; he will destroy these nations before you and dispossess them. As for Joshua, he is about to cross before you just as the Lord has said.

Gather the people -- men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages -- so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law.

Then their children, who have not known this law, will also hear about and learn to fear the Lord your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."

Then the Lord said to Moses, "You are about to die, and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they are going. They will reject me and break my covenant that I have made with them.

for I know about your rebellion and stubbornness. Indeed, even while I have been living among you to this very day, you have rebelled against the Lord; you will be even more rebellious after my death!

Gather to me all your tribal elders and officials so I can speak to them directly about these things and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.

For this is no idle word for you -- it is your life! By this word you will live a long time in the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess."

Joshua son of Nun sent two spies out from Shittim secretly and instructed them: "Find out what you can about the land, especially Jericho." They stopped at the house of a prostitute named Rahab and spent the night there.

But stay about three thousand feet behind it. Keep your distance so you can see which way you should go, for you have not traveled this way before."

About forty thousand battle-ready troops marched past the Lord to fight on the plains of Jericho.

The Lord told Joshua, "See, I am about to defeat Jericho for you, along with its king and its warriors.

But the Israelites disobeyed the command about the city's riches. Achan son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, stole some of the riches. The Lord was furious with the Israelites.

They returned and reported to Joshua, "Don't send the whole army. About two or three thousand men are adequate to defeat Ai. Don't tire out the whole army, for Ai is small."

So about three thousand men went up, but they fled from the men of Ai.

The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of them and chased them from in front of the city gate all the way to the fissures and defeated them on the steep slope. The people's courage melted away like water.

When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will turn against us and destroy the very memory of us from the earth. What will you do to protect your great reputation?"

They told him, "Your subjects have come from a very distant land because of the reputation of the Lord your God, for we have heard the news about all he did in Egypt

The sun stood still and the moon stood motionless while the nation took vengeance on its enemies. The event is recorded in the Scroll of the Upright One. The sun stood motionless in the middle of the sky and did not set for about a full day.

The Lord told Joshua, "Don't be afraid of them, for about this time tomorrow I will cause all of them to lie dead before Israel. You must hamstring their horses and burn their chariots."

The men of Judah approached Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know what the Lord said about you and me to Moses, the man of God, at Kadesh Barnea.

Today I am still as strong as when Moses sent me out. I can fight and go about my daily activities with the same energy I had then.

"Have the Israelites select the cities of refuge that I told you about through Moses.

When Achan son of Zerah disobeyed the command about the city's riches, the entire Israelite community was judged, though only one man had sinned. He most certainly died for his sin!'"

The Israelites were satisfied with their report and gave thanks to God. They said nothing more about launching an attack to destroy the land in which the Reubenites and Gadites lived.

"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!

I refused to respond to Balaam; he kept prophesying good things about you, and I rescued you from his power.

He said to them, "Follow me, for the Lord is about to defeat your enemies, the Moabites!" They followed him, captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Moab, and did not let anyone cross.

That day they killed about ten thousand Moabites -- all strong, capable warriors; not one escaped.

The men of Zebulun were not concerned about their lives; Naphtali charged on to the battlefields.

Gideon said to him, "Pardon me, but if the Lord is with us, why has such disaster overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about? They said, 'Did the Lord not bring us up from Egypt?' But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian."

When Gideon arrived, he heard a man telling another man about a dream he had. The man said, "Look! I had a dream. I saw a stale cake of barley bread rolling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard it knocked it over and turned it upside down. The tent just collapsed."

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies. There were about fifteen thousand survivors from the army of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand sword-wielding soldiers had been killed.

The leaders of Shechem rebelled against Abimelech by putting bandits in the hills, who robbed everyone who traveled by on the road. But Abimelech found out about it.

The next day the Shechemites came out to the field. When Abimelech heard about it,

So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches against the stronghold and set fire to it. All the people of the Tower of Shechem died -- about a thousand men and women.

He said to his mother, "You know the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole it, but now I am giving it back to you." His mother said, "May the Lord reward you, my son!"

The Benjaminites attacked the army, leaving the city unguarded. They began to strike down their enemy just as they had done before. On the main roads (one leads to Bethel, the other to Gibeah) and in the field, they struck down about thirty Israelites.

the Israelites counterattacked. Benjamin had begun to strike down the Israelites; they struck down about thirty men. They said, "There's no doubt about it! They are totally defeated as in the earlier battle."

When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, we'll say to them, "Do us a favor and let them be, for we could not get each one a wife through battle. Don't worry about breaking your oath! You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.'"

So her sons married Moabite women. (One was named Orpah and the other Ruth.) And they continued to live there about ten years.

So the two of themWhen they entered Bethlehem, the whole village was excited about their arrival. The women of the village said, "Can this be Naomi?"

So she gathered grain in the field until evening. When she threshed what she had gathered, it came to about thirty pounds of barley!

Then he said, "Hold out the shawl you are wearing and grip it tightly." As she held it tightly, he measured out about sixty pounds of barley into the shawl and put it on her shoulders. Then he went into town,

and she returned to her mother-in-law.When Ruth returned to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, "How did things turn out for you, my daughter?" Ruth told her about all the man had done for her.

Now Eli was very old when he heard about everything that his sons used to do to all the people of Israel and how they used to have sex with the women who were stationed at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

He said to them, "Why do you behave in this way? For I hear about these evil things from all these people.

The Lord said to Samuel, "Look! I am about to do something in Israel; when anyone hears about it, both of his ears will tingle.

On that day I will carry out against Eli everything that I spoke about his house -- from start to finish!

You should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, and he did not rebuke them.

So Samuel lay down until morning. Then he opened the doors of the Lord's house. But Samuel was afraid to tell Eli about the vision.

The Philistines arranged their forces to fight Israel. As the battle spread out, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men in the battle line in the field.

When he arrived in Shiloh, Eli was sitting in his chair watching by the side of the road, for he was very worried about the ark of God. As the man entered the city to give his report, the whole city cried out.

When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered at Mizpah, the leaders of the Philistines went up against Israel. When the Israelites heard about this, they were afraid of the Philistines.

When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, "Come on, let's head back before my father quits worrying about the donkeys and becomes anxious about us!"

When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said, "Here is the man that I told you about! He will rule over my people."

Don't be concerned about the donkeys that you lost three days ago, for they have been found. Whom does all Israel desire? Is it not you, and all your father's family?"

Then Samuel brought Saul and his servant into the room and gave them a place at the head of those who had been invited. There were about thirty people present.

When you leave me today, you will find two men near Rachel's tomb at Zelzah on Benjamin's border. They will say to you, 'The donkeys you have gone looking for have been found. Your father is no longer concerned about the donkeys but has become anxious about you two! He is asking, "What should I do about my son?"'

Saul said to his uncle, "He assured us that the donkeys had been found." But Saul did not tell him what Samuel had said about the matter of kingship.

Then Samuel talked to the people about how the kingship would work. He wrote it all down on a scroll and set it before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away to their homes.

But some wicked men said, "How can this man save us?" They despised him and did not even bring him a gift. But Saul said nothing about it.

Now Saul was walking behind the oxen as he came from the field. Saul asked, "What has happened to the people? Why are they weeping?" So they told him about the men of Jabesh.

"So now, take your positions and watch this great thing that the Lord is about to do in your sight.

Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost that was at Geba and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul alerted all the land saying, "Let the Hebrews pay attention!"

Then Samuel set out and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin. Saul mustered the army that remained with him; there were about six hundred men.

Now Saul was sitting under a pomegranate tree in Migron, on the outskirts of Gibeah. The army that was with him numbered about six hundred men.

In this initial skirmish Jonathan and his armor bearer struck down about twenty men in an area that measured half an acre.

But Jonathan had not heard about the oath his father had made the army take. He extended the end of his staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb. When he ate it, his eyes gleamed.

Samuel replied, "How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me!" But the Lord said, "Take a heifer with you and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.'

Now Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David. When they told Saul about this, it pleased him.

I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are. I will speak about you to my father. When I find out what the problem is, I will let you know."