While you are living, all will give way before you: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not take away my help from you or give you up.

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.

Have I not given you your orders? Take heart and be strong; have no fear and do not be troubled; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go,

Whoever goes against your orders, and does not give attention to all your words, will be put to death: only take heart and be strong.

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 that you will keep safe my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and all they have, so that death may not come on us?

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.

Then Joshua got up early in the morning, and, moving on from Shittim, he and all the children of Israel came to Jordan and were there for the night before going over.

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.

So the children of Israel did as Joshua gave them orders, and took twelve stones from the middle of Jordan, as the Lord had said to Joshua, one for every tribe of the children of Israel; these they took across with them to their night's resting-place and put them down there.

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 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.

So he made the ark of the Lord go all round the town once: then they went back to the tents for the night.

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.

For this reason the children of Israel have given way, turning their backs in flight before their attackers, because they are cursed: I will no longer be with you, if you do not put the cursed thing away from among you.

Then the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear and do not be troubled: take with you all the fighting-men and go up against Ai: for I have given into your hands the king of Ai and his people and his town and his land:

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:

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.

So all the people were in their places, the army on the north side of the town and the secret force on the west; and that night Joshua went down into the valley.

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.

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.

For Joshua did not take back his hand with the outstretched spear till the destruction of the people of Ai was complete.

So Joshua made peace with them, and made an agreement with them that they were not to be put to death: and the chiefs of the people took an oath to them.

And the children of Israel did not put them to death, because the chiefs of the people had taken an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. And all the people made an outcry against the chiefs.

But all the chiefs said to the people, We have taken an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and so we may not put our hands on them.

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.

So he kept them safe from the children of Israel, and did not let them be put to death.

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.

So Joshua, having come up from Gilgal all night, made a sudden attack on them.

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.

But do you, without waiting, go after their army, attacking them from the back; do not let them get into their towns, for the Lord your God has given them into your hands.

And Joshua said to them, Have no fear and do not be troubled; be strong and take heart: for so will the Lord do to all against whom you make war.

As for the towns made on hills of earth, not one was burned by Israel but Hazor, which was burned by Joshua.

Not one town made peace with the children of Israel, but only the Hivites of Gibeon: they took them all in war.

Not one of the Anakim was to be seen in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, some were still living.

However, the people of Israel did not send out the Geshurites, or the Maacathites: but Geshur and Maacath are living among Israel to this day.

And the Canaanites who were living in Gezer were not forced out; but the Canaanites have been living among Ephraim, to this day, as servants, doing forced work.

But the children of Manasseh were not able to make the people of those towns go out; but the Canaanites would go on living in that land.

Then Joshua said to them, If you are such a great people, go up into the woodlands, clearing a place there for yourselves in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim, if the hill-country of Ephraim is not wide enough for you.

And the children of Joseph said, The hill-country is not enough for us: and all the Canaanites living in the valley have iron war-carriages, those in Beth-shean and its towns as well as those in the valley of Jezreel.

Then Joshua said to the children of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, You are a great people, and have great power: you are not to have one property only,

But there were still seven tribes among the children of Israel who had not taken up their heritage.

The heritage of Simeon was taken out of Judah's stretch of land, for Judah's part was more than they had need of, so the heritage of the children of Simeon was inside their heritage.

(But the limit of the children of Dan was not wide enough for them; so the children of Dan went up and made war on Leshem and took it, putting it to the sword without mercy, and they took it for their heritage and made a place for themselves there, giving it the name of Leshem-dan, after the name of their father, Dan.)

And if the one who has the right of punishment comes after him, they are not to give the taker of life up to him; because he was the cause of his neighbour's death without designing it and not in hate.

These were the towns marked out for all the children of Israel and for the man from a strange country living among them, so that anyone causing the death of another in error, might go in flight there, and not be put to death by him who has the right of punishment for blood till he had come before the meeting of the people.

Was not the sin of Baal-peor great enough, from which we are not clear even to this day, though punishment came on the people of the Lord,

But if the land you now have is unclean, come over into the Lord's land where his House is, and take up your heritage among us: but do not be false to the Lord and to us by building yourselves an altar in addition to the altar of the Lord our God.

Did not Achan, the son of Zerah, do wrong about the cursed thing, causing wrath to come on all the people of Israel? And not on him only came the punishment of death.

That we have made ourselves an altar, being false to the Lord, keep us not safe from death this day; and if for the purpose of offering burned offerings on it and meal offerings, or peace-offerings, let the Lord himself send punishment for it;

And if we have not, in fact, done this designedly and with purpose, having in our minds the fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?

So we said, Let us now make an altar for ourselves, not for burned offerings or for the offerings of beasts:

But to be a witness between us and you, and between the future generations, that we have the right of worshipping the Lord with our burned offerings and our offerings of beasts and our peace-offerings; so that your children will not be able to say to our children in time to come, You have no part in the Lord.

For we said to ourselves, If they say this to us or to future generations, then we will say, See this copy of the Lord's altar which our fathers made, not for burned offerings or offerings of beasts, but for a witness between us and you.

And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, said to the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh, Now we are certain that the Lord is among us, because you have not done this wrong against the Lord: and you have kept us from falling into the hands of the Lord.

So be very strong to keep and do whatever is recorded in the book of the law of Moses, not turning away from it to the right or to the left;

Have nothing to do with these nations who still are living among you; let not their gods be named by you or used in your oaths; do not be their servants or give them worship:

Then you may be certain that the Lord your God will not go on driving these nations out from before you; but they will become a danger and a cause of sin to you, a whip for your sides and thorns in your eyes, till you are cut off from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

But I did not give ear to Balaam; and so he went on blessing you; and I kept you safe from him.

And I sent the hornet before you, driving out the two kings of the Amorites before you, not with your sword and your bow.

And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting.

And Joshua said to the people, You are not able to be the servants of the Lord, for he is a holy God, a God who will not let his honour be given to another: he will have no mercy on your wrongdoing or your sins.