Joshua 24

1 And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shiloh, and called together their elders and their scribes and their judges, and set them before God. [a] 2 And Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Your fathers lived beyond the river from the beginning — Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor — and they served other gods. 3 And I took your father Abraham from beyond the river, and I guided him through all the land, and I multiplied his seed; and I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave Esau Mount Seir for him to inherit; and Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt, and became there a great and numerous and mighty nation.’

5 And the Egyptians treated them badly, and the Lord struck Egypt with what he did among them; and after that he brought you out [b] 6 of Egypt, and you went into the Red Sea. And the Egyptians chased after your fathers with chariots and horses into the Red Sea, 7 and we cried out to the Lord, and he put a cloud and the thick darkness between us and the Egyptians, and he brought the sea over them and covered them; and your own eyes saw everything the Lord did in the land of Egypt. And you were in the wilderness many days.

8 And he brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived beyond the Jordan, and they drew up in battle against you; and the Lord gave them into your hands, and you took their land as your inheritance, and you destroyed them from before you. 9 And Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, rose up and made war on Israel, and he sent and called Balaam to curse you. 10 But the Lord your God was not willing to destroy you; and he blessed you with a blessing, and rescued you out of their hands, and gave them over.

11 And you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho; and the people living in Jericho fought against you — the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite and the Hittite and the Girgashite — and the Lord gave them into your hands. 12 And he sent the hornet ahead of you, and he drove them out from before you — twelve kings of the Amorites — not with your sword and not with your bow. [c] 13 And he gave you a land you did not work for, and cities you did not build, and you settled in them; and you eat from vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.

14 And now, fear the Lord and serve him in uprightness and in righteousness; and put away the foreign gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 But if it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve — whether the gods of your fathers that were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my household will serve the Lord, for he is holy.”

16 And the people answered and said, “Far be it from us to leave the Lord behind, so as to serve other gods. 17 The Lord our God, he is God. He brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, and he kept us safe on all the road we walked, and among all the nations we passed through. 18 And the Lord drove out the Amorite and all the nations living in the land from before us. Yes, and we too will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

19 And Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for God is holy; and he is jealous, and he will not forgive your sins and your lawless deeds. 20 Whenever you abandon the Lord and serve other gods, he will come on you and treat you badly and consume you, in return for the good he has done you.” 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No — we will serve the Lord.”

22 And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen the Lord, to serve him. 23 And now put away the foreign gods that are among you, and set your heart straight toward the Lord God of Israel.” 24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord, and we will listen to his voice.”

25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and gave them a law and a judgment at Shiloh, before the tent of the God of Israel. 26 And he wrote these words in a book, the law of God; and Joshua took a great stone and set it up under the terebinth, before the Lord. 27 And Joshua said to the people, “Look, this stone will be a witness among you, for it has heard everything that was said to it by the Lord, all that he has spoken to us today. And it will be a witness among you in the last days, whenever you deal falsely with the Lord my God.” 28 And Joshua sent the people away, and they went each to his own place.

29 And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who lived a long time with Joshua, and who had seen all the works of the Lord, everything he did for Israel. [d] 30 After these things Joshua son of Nun, the Lord’s slave, died, a hundred and ten years old. 31 And they buried him at the borders of his portion, at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. There they laid beside him, in the tomb where they buried him, the stone knives with which he circumcised the children of Israel at Gilgal when he brought them out of Egypt, as the Lord had ordered them; and they are there to this day. 32 And the children of Israel brought up the bones of Joseph out of Egypt and buried them at Shechem, in the share of the field that Jacob bought from the Amorites living in Shechem for a hundred ewe lambs; and he gave it to Joseph as a share.

33 After this Eleazar son of Aaron the chief priest died, and was buried at Gibeah of Phinehas his son, which he gave him in the hill country of Ephraim. On that day the children of Israel took the ark of God and carried it about among themselves; and Phinehas served as priest in place of Eleazar his father, until he died and was buried at his own Gibeah. And the children of Israel went off, each to his own place and to his own city; and the children of Israel revered Astarte and Ashtaroth and the gods of the nations around them; and the Lord gave them into the hands of Eglon king of Moab, and he ruled over them eighteen years. [e]