Joshua 6

1 Now Jericho was shut up tight and fortified, and no one went out of it and no one came in. 2 And the Lord said to Joshua, “Look, I am handing Jericho over into your power, and its king who is in it, and its men who are mighty in strength. 3 And you, station the fighting men in a circle around it. 4 And when you blow the trumpet, all the people are to shout together. [a] 5 And when they have shouted, the walls of the city will fall down of themselves, and all the people will go in, each one rushing straight ahead into the city.”

6 And Joshua son of Nun went in to the priests 7 and said to them, “Charge the people to go round and encircle the city, and let the fighting men march past armed before the Lord. [b] 8 And let seven priests carrying seven sacred trumpets go forward in the same way before the Lord, and let them sound them loudly; and let the ark of the covenant of the Lord follow behind. 9 And let the fighting men march in front, and let the priests who bring up the rear go behind the ark of the covenant of the Lord, marching and blowing the trumpets.” 10 And Joshua commanded the people, “Do not shout, and do not let anyone hear your voice, until the day he himself gives the word to raise the shout; then you are to shout.” 11 And the ark of the covenant of God went round the city and then went straight back into the camp, and spent the night there.

12 And on the second day Joshua rose in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the covenant of the Lord, 13 and the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went on ahead before the Lord, and after them the fighting men followed, and the rest of the crowd went behind the ark of the covenant of the Lord; and the priests blew the trumpets, and the whole rest of the crowd went round the city from close by, 14 and then went back again into the camp. This is what they did for six days.

15 And on the seventh day they rose at dawn and went round the city six times. [c] 16 And at the seventh circuit the priests blew the trumpets, and Joshua said to the children of Israel, “Shout, for the Lord has given you the city! 17 And the city is to be a thing devoted — it and everything in it — to the Lord of hosts. Only save Rahab the prostitute alive, her and everything in her house. [d] 18 But you, keep well away from the thing devoted, so that you do not set your minds on it and take some of the thing devoted, and make the camp of the children of Israel a thing devoted, and bring us all to ruin. 19 And all the silver or gold or bronze or iron is to be holy to the Lord; it is to be brought into the treasury of the Lord.”

20 And the priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpets, all the people shouted together with a great and mighty shout, and the whole wall fell down all around, and all the people went up into the city. 21 And Joshua devoted it to destruction, and everything that was in the city, from man to woman, from young man to old man, down to the calf and the donkey, with the edge of the sword.

22 And Joshua said to the two young men who had gone in as spies, “Go into the woman’s house and bring her out from there, and everything she has.” 23 And the two young men who had spied out the city went into the woman’s house and brought out Rahab the prostitute, and her father and her mother and her brothers and everything she had and all her relatives; and they settled her outside the camp of Israel. 24 And the city was burned with fire, with everything in it, except the silver and the gold and the bronze and the iron, which they gave to be brought into the treasury of the Lord. 25 And Joshua kept Rahab the prostitute and her whole father’s house alive, and she has lived in Israel until this day, because she hid the spies, whom Joshua had sent to spy out Jericho.

26 And that day Joshua put them under an oath before the Lord, saying, “Cursed be the man who rebuilds that city. He will lay its foundation in his firstborn, and he will set up its gates in his youngest son.” And that is what Ozan of Bethel did: he laid its foundation in Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates in his youngest son, the one who was left alive. [e] 27 And the Lord was with Joshua, and his name was in all the land.