Joshua 24 — Legacy Standard Bible

Joshua Gathers Israel

24Then ^aJoshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God. ²And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the ¹River, namely, ^aTerah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods. ³‘Then ^aI took your father Abraham from beyond the ¹River and led him through all the land of Canaan and ^bmultiplied his seed and gave him ^cIsaac. ⁴‘To Isaac I gave ^aJacob and Esau, and ^bto Esau I gave Mount Seir to possess it; but ^cJacob and his sons went down to Egypt. ⁵‘Then ^aI sent Moses and Aaron, and I smote Egypt ¹by what I did in its midst; and afterward I brought you out. ⁶‘And I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and ^ayou came to the sea; and Egypt pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the ¹Red Sea. ⁷‘Then they cried out to Yahweh; He put darkness between you and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered them; and your own eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And ^ayou lived in the wilderness for many days. ⁸‘Then ^aI brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan, and they fought with you; and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you. ⁹‘Then ^aBalak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel, and he sent and summoned Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. ¹⁰‘But I ^awas not willing to listen to Balaam. So he blessed you repeatedly, and I delivered you from his hand. ¹¹‘^aAnd you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and ^bthe Amorite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Girgashite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. Thus ^cI gave them into your hand. ¹²‘Then I ^asent the hornet before you, and it ¹drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, but ^bnot by your sword or your bow. ¹³‘^aAnd I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

We Will Serve Yahweh Our God

¹⁴“So now, ¹^,^afear Yahweh and serve Him in integrity and ²truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the ³River and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. ¹⁵“If it is evil in your sight to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River or ^athe gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”

¹⁶And the people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh to serve other gods; ¹⁷for Yahweh our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, and who did these great signs in our sight and kept us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed. ¹⁸“And Yahweh drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve Yahweh, for He is our God.”

¹⁹Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve Yahweh, ^afor He is a holy God. He is ^ba jealous God; ^cHe will not forgive your transgression or your sins. ²⁰“^aIf you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.” ²¹And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve Yahweh.” ²²And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that ^ayou have chosen for yourselves Yahweh, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” ²³“So now, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst, and ^aincline your hearts to Yahweh, the God of Israel.” ²⁴^aAnd the people said to Joshua, “We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to His voice.” ²⁵^aSo Joshua cut a covenant with the people that day and made for them a statute and a judgment in Shechem. ²⁶And Joshua ^awrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh. ²⁷And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, ^athis stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of Yahweh which He spoke ¹to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, lest you deny your God.” ²⁸Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance.

Joshua’s Death and Burial

²⁹Now it happened that after these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being 110 years old. ³⁰And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in ^aTimnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaash.

³¹^aAnd Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who ¹survived Joshua, who knew all the work of Yahweh which He had done for Israel.

³²Now ^athey buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem, in the portion of the field ^bwhich Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred ¹qesitah; and they became the inheritance of Joseph’s sons. ³³And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him ¹at Gibeah of ^aPhinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim.