Joshua Takes Canaan

After Moses had been taken away from among men, in the manner already described, and all the rites of mourning for him were finished and the grief for him was over, Joshua ordered the people to get ready for a campaign. He also sent spies to Jericho to find out what forces the city had and what its people intended. Meanwhile he put his camp in order, meaning to cross the Jordan soon, at the right season. Then he called together the leaders of the tribe of Reuben, the chiefs of the tribe of Gad, and those of Manasseh — for half of this tribe had been allowed to settle in the country of the Amorites, which was a seventh part of the land of Canaan — and reminded them of what they had promised Moses. He urged them, for the sake of the care Moses had taken of them (he had never tired of working for them, not even when he was dying) and for the sake of the common good, to prepare themselves and readily do what they had promised. So he took the fifty thousand of them who followed him, and marched from Abila to the Jordan, about seven and a half miles. [a]

Once he had pitched camp, the spies came straight to him, well informed about the whole state of the Canaanites. At first, before anyone had found them out, they had looked over the whole city of Jericho undisturbed. They saw which parts of the walls were strong and which were weak and in fact unsafe, and which of the gates were weak enough to let their army in. Those who met them paid no attention when they saw them; they took them for strangers, who are always curious to look at everything in a city, and not for enemies. In the evening they went to an inn near the wall to eat supper. When they had finished and were considering how to get away, word was brought to the king while he was at supper that some men had come from the Hebrews’ camp to spy out the city, that they were in the inn kept by Rahab, and that they were very anxious not to be discovered. He at once sent men to seize them and bring them to him, so that he might examine them under torture and learn what their business was there. [d]

As soon as Rahab learned that these messengers were coming, she hid the spies in the bundles of flax she was drying on the wall. She told the king’s messengers that some strangers she did not know had eaten supper with her a little before sunset and had gone away; they could easily be caught, if they were any threat to the city or likely to bring any danger to the king. So the messengers, fooled by the woman and suspecting no trick, went their way without even searching the inn. They set off at once in pursuit along the roads they thought the men most likely to have taken, especially those leading to the river, but they heard no news of them and gave up the trouble of any further chase.

When the commotion was over, Rahab brought the men down. She asked them, once they had taken possession of the land of Canaan and it was in their power to repay her for saving them, to remember the danger she had run for their sake: had she been caught hiding them, she could not have escaped a terrible death, she and her whole family with her. Then she sent them home, asking them to swear to spare her and her family when they took the city and destroyed all its inhabitants, as they had resolved to do; for she said she knew this, having been taught it by signs from God. The spies acknowledged that they owed her thanks for what she had already done, and swore to repay her kindness not only in words but in deeds. But they gave her this advice: when she saw that the city was about to be taken, she should gather her goods and her whole family into her inn for safety, and hang scarlet threads in front of her doors, so that the commander of the Hebrews would know her house and take care to do her no harm. They told her: “We will tell him about this, because of the care you have taken to save us. But if any of your family falls in the battle, do not blame us; and we beg the God by whom we have sworn not to be displeased with us then, as though we had broken our oaths.” When they had made this agreement, the men let themselves down from the wall by a rope, escaped, and came and told their own people everything they had done on their journey to this city. Joshua told Eleazar the high priest and the senate what the spies had sworn to Rahab, and they confirmed the oath.

The army was afraid of the crossing. The river ran with a strong current and could not be crossed by bridges, for none had ever yet been laid over it; they supposed that if they tried to build one, the enemy would not give them time to finish it; and they had no ferryboats. Then God promised to deal with the river so that they could cross it, by taking away most of its water. So after two days Joshua brought the army and the whole people across in this way. The priests went first of all, carrying the ark; then the Levites, carrying the tabernacle and the vessels used for the sacrifices; after them the whole people followed, tribe by tribe, with their children and wives in the middle, because they were afraid the stream would carry them away. As soon as the priests had stepped into the river, it proved fordable: the depth of the water was held back and the sand showed on the bottom, because the current was no longer strong or swift enough to sweep it away by its force. So they all crossed the river without fear, finding it in exactly the state God had foretold he would put it in. The priests stood still in the middle of the river until the people had crossed and reached the bank in safety; and when all had gone over, the priests came out too and let the current run freely as it used to before. As soon as the Hebrews were out of it, the river at once rose again and returned to its proper size. [i]

The Hebrews went on about six miles farther and pitched camp a mile and a quarter from Jericho. Joshua built an altar from the stones that the heads of the tribes, at the prophet’s command, had taken up out of the riverbed, to be afterward a memorial of how the river’s stream was held back. On it he offered sacrifice to God, and in that place they kept the Passover. They now had plenty of everything they had lacked until then, for they reaped the Canaanites’ grain, which was now ripe, and took other things as plunder. It was then that their former food, the manna, which they had eaten for forty years, came to an end. [j]

While the Israelites were doing this, the Canaanites did not attack them but kept quiet inside their own walls, so Joshua resolved to besiege them. On the first day of the feast, the priests carried the ark around the city, with part of the armed men to guard it. These priests went ahead blowing their seven horns and urged the army to be of good courage, and they went around the city with the senate following them. When the priests had simply blown their horns — for they did nothing else at all — they returned to the camp. When they had done this for six days, on the seventh Joshua gathered the armed men and the whole people together and told them the good news that the city would now be taken: on that day God would give it to them by the falling of the walls, and that of their own accord, without any labor of theirs. But he ordered them to kill everyone they caught, and not to hold back from slaughtering their enemies, either from weariness or from pity; not to fall on the plunder and so be distracted from pursuing their enemies as they fled; but to destroy every animal and take nothing for their own private gain. He also commanded them to collect all the silver and gold, so that it could be set apart for God as first fruits of this glorious exploit, since they had won it from the first city they took. Only they were to save Rahab and her relatives alive, because of the oath the spies had sworn to her. [k] When he had said this and drawn up his army, he led it against the city. They went around the city again, the ark going before them and the priests urging the army on to the work with their horns. When they had gone around it seven times and had stood still a little while, the wall fell down, though the Hebrews had brought no engine of war or any other force against it.

So they entered Jericho and killed all the men in it, while they were terrified at the sudden collapse of the walls; their courage had become useless, and they were not able to defend themselves. So they were killed and their throats cut, some in the streets and others caught in their houses. Nothing helped them; they all perished, even to the women and the children, and the city was filled with dead bodies, and not one person escaped. They also burned the whole city and the country around it. But the spies saved Rahab alive, with her family, who had taken refuge in her inn. When she was brought to him, Joshua acknowledged that they owed her thanks for saving the spies, and said he would not seem to fall behind her in kindness. So he gave her certain lands at once, and held her in great honor ever after. If any part of the city had escaped the fire, he razed it to its foundations. And he laid a curse on anyone who would settle there and wish to rebuild the ruined city: when he laid the foundation of the walls, he would be robbed of his eldest son, and when he finished them, he would lose his youngest son. God did not neglect the curse; what came of it we will tell later. [m] An immense quantity of silver and gold, and of bronze besides, was heaped together from the city when it was taken. No one broke the decree or stole any of it for his own gain; they kept their hands off it as already consecrated to God. Joshua handed these spoils to the priests to be stored among their treasures. And so Jericho perished. [n]

But there was a man named Achan, the son of Zabdi, of the tribe of Judah, who found a royal robe woven entirely of gold, and a piece of gold weighing about five pounds. He thought it very hard that the spoils he had found, at some risk to himself, he must give away and offer to God, who had no need of them, while he who did need them must go without. So he dug a deep pit in his own tent and hid them in it, supposing that he would be hidden not only from his fellow soldiers but from God himself as well. [o] The place where Joshua pitched his camp was called Gilgal, which means “liberty”; for now that they had crossed the Jordan, they considered themselves free of the miseries they had suffered under the Egyptians and in the wilderness. [q]

A few days after the disaster that befell Jericho, Joshua sent three thousand armed men to take Ai, a city lying above Jericho. But when the people of Ai engaged them, they were routed and lost thirty-six of their men. When this was reported to the Israelites, it made them very sad and deeply dejected — not so much because of their kinship with the men who had been killed, although they were all good men who deserved their esteem, as because of the despair it caused. They had believed that they were already as good as in possession of the land and would bring the army back from its battles without loss, as God had promised beforehand; now, unexpectedly, they saw their enemies emboldened by success. So they put sackcloth over their clothes and stayed in tears and mourning all day, without the least thought of food, taking what had happened deeply to heart. [r] When Joshua saw the army so dejected and full of forebodings about the whole campaign, he spoke frankly with God, and said: “We have not come this far out of any rashness of our own, as though we thought ourselves able to conquer this land with our own weapons. We came at the urging of Moses your servant, because you promised us by many signs that you would give us this land as our possession and would make our army always stronger than our enemies in war. And some success has already come to us, as you promised. But now we have unexpectedly been beaten and have lost some men from our army, and we are grieved at it, fearing that what you have promised us, and what Moses foretold to us, cannot be relied on. Our hopes for the future trouble us all the more because we have met with such a disaster in this, our first attempt. But you, Master, free us from these suspicions; for you are able to find a cure for these troubles by giving us victory, which will both take away the grief we are in now and prevent our distrust about what is to come.”

Joshua made these pleas to God lying face down on the ground. God answered him that he should get up and purify his army of the pollution that had got into it; that “things consecrated to me have been shamelessly stolen from me,” and that “this is why this defeat has happened to them”; and that once they had searched out and punished the offender, he would always take care that they won the victory over their enemies. Joshua told this to the people. Calling for Eleazar the high priest and the men in authority, he cast lots tribe by tribe. When the lot showed that this wicked deed had been done by someone of the tribe of Judah, he cast the lot again among the clans belonging to it, and the truth of the crime was found to lie with Achan’s kindred. When the inquiry was made man by man, they took Achan. With God driving him to the last extremity, he could not deny the deed; he confessed the theft and brought out what he had taken before them all. He was put to death at once, and got no more than burial by night, in a disgraceful manner fit for a condemned criminal. [s]

When Joshua had purified the army in this way, he led it against Ai. During the night he laid an ambush all around the city, and at daybreak he attacked the enemy. As they advanced boldly against the Israelites because of their earlier victory, he made them believe he was retreating, and so drew them a long way from the city, while they supposed they were chasing their enemies and despised them, as though things stood as they had in the earlier battle. Then Joshua ordered his forces to turn around and set them facing the enemy’s front. He gave the agreed signals to those lying in ambush and so roused them to fight, and they rushed suddenly into the city while its people were on the walls, and others, in confusion, were coming to watch those outside the gates. So these men took the city and killed everyone they met. Meanwhile Joshua forced those who had come out against him into close combat, routed them and put them to flight. They were driven back toward the city, thinking it untouched; but as soon as they saw that it had been taken and was burning, with their wives and children in it, they wandered scattered about the fields, wholly unable to defend themselves, since they had no one to support them. When this disaster had come on the men of Ai, there were taken a great number of children, women and servants, and an immense quantity of other goods. The Hebrews also took herds of cattle and a great deal of money, for this was a rich country. When Joshua came to Gilgal, he divided all these spoils among the soldiers.

The Gibeonites lived very near Jerusalem. When they saw what miseries had come on the people of Jericho and of Ai, and suspected that the same terrible fate would reach as far as themselves, they did not think it wise to ask Joshua for mercy, for they supposed they would find little mercy from a man who was making war to destroy the nation of the Canaanites completely. Instead they invited their neighbors, the people of Chephirah and Kiriath-jearim, to join in a league with them, telling them that they too would not escape the danger if the Israelites struck first and took the Gibeonites. Once they had persuaded them, they resolved to try to escape the forces of the Israelites. With their neighbors agreeing to their proposal, they sent ambassadors to Joshua to make a treaty of friendship with him, choosing those citizens who were most highly regarded and most able to do what would serve the people best. [t]

These ambassadors thought it dangerous to admit that they were Canaanites, but thought they might escape the danger by a trick: they would say that they had no connection with the Canaanites at all, but lived a very long way from them. They said further that they had come a long way because of the reputation he had won for his virtue; and as proof of what they said, they showed him the state of their clothes, which they said had been new when they set out but were badly worn by the length of time they had been on the road. In fact they had put on torn garments on purpose to make him believe it. So they stood in the middle of the people and said that they had been sent by the people of Gibeon and of the surrounding cities, which were very far from the land where the Israelites now were, to make a treaty of friendship with them on the terms customary among their forefathers. For when they learned that, by the favor and gift of God, the Israelites were to be given possession of the land of Canaan, they said, they were very glad to hear it, and they asked to be admitted among their citizens. So the ambassadors spoke, and showing them the marks of their long journey, they begged the Hebrews to make a treaty of friendship with them. Joshua believed what they said, that they were not of the nation of the Canaanites, and made friendship with them; and Eleazar the high priest, with the senate, swore to them that they would regard them as their friends and allies and would attempt nothing unfair against them, the people also consenting to the oaths made to them.

So these men, having got what they wanted by deceiving the Israelites, went home. But when Joshua led his army to the country at the foot of the mountains in this part of Canaan, he learned that the Gibeonites lived not far from Jerusalem and were of Canaanite stock. He sent for their leaders and reproached them for the fraud they had practiced on him. They pleaded in their own defense that they had no other way to save themselves, and so had been forced to resort to it. He called for Eleazar the high priest and for the senate, who judged it right to make them public slaves, so as not to break the oath they had made to them; and they appointed them to that. This was how these men found safety and security from the disaster that was about to overtake them.

But the king of Jerusalem was angry that the Gibeonites had gone over to Joshua, so he called on the kings of the neighboring nations to join together and make war on them. When the Gibeonites saw these kings — four of them, besides the king of Jerusalem — and saw that they had pitched camp at a spring not far from their city and were preparing to besiege it, they called on Joshua for help. Such was their situation that they expected to be destroyed by these Canaanites and hoped to be saved by those who had come to destroy the Canaanites, because of the treaty of friendship between them. So Joshua hurried with his whole army to help them. Marching day and night, he fell on the enemy early in the morning, routed them, and pursued them down the slopes of the hills. The place is called Beth-horon. There he also saw that God was helping him, as God showed by thunder and lightning bolts, and by a fall of hail larger than usual. Moreover, the day was lengthened, so that night would not come on too soon and hinder the Hebrews’ eagerness in pursuing their enemies; so Joshua captured the kings, who were hiding in a cave at Makkedah, and put them to death. That the day was lengthened at this time and was longer than usual is recorded in the books laid up in the temple. [u]

With the kings who had made war on the Gibeonites and were ready to fight them overthrown in this way, Joshua went back to the mountain country of Canaan. When he had made a great slaughter of the people there and taken their plunder, he returned to the camp at Gilgal. By now the fame of the Hebrews’ courage had spread widely among the neighboring peoples, and those who heard how many men had been killed were terrified. So the kings who lived around Mount Lebanon, who were Canaanites, and the Canaanites who lived in the plains, with auxiliaries from the land of the Philistines, pitched their camp at Beroth, a city of Upper Galilee not far from Kedesh, which is itself also a place in Galilee. The whole army numbered three hundred thousand armed foot soldiers, ten thousand horsemen and twenty thousand chariots. The size of the enemy’s host frightened both Joshua himself and the Israelites; they grew wary of hoping for success, so great was the terror that struck them. Then God rebuked them for their fear and asked them whether they wanted greater help than he could give them. He promised them that they would overcome their enemies, and at the same time ordered them to disable their enemies’ horses and burn their chariots. These promises of God filled Joshua with courage, and he went out suddenly against the enemy. After five days’ march he came upon them and joined battle with them. There was a terrible fight, and so many were killed that those who heard of it could not believe it. He also pursued them a long way and destroyed the enemy’s whole army, apart from a few, and all the kings fell in the battle; so that when there were no more men left to kill, Joshua killed their horses and burned their chariots. He passed through all their country without opposition, no one daring to meet him in battle; but he still kept on, taking their cities by siege and again killing everyone he caught. [x]

The fifth year had now passed, and not one of the Canaanites was left, except some who had withdrawn to strongholds. So Joshua moved his camp from Gilgal to the mountain country and set up the tabernacle in the city of Shiloh, for it seemed a fitting place for it because of the beauty of its setting, until their affairs would allow them to build a temple. From there he went to Shechem with all the people and built an altar where Moses had directed beforehand. Then he divided the army, placing half of it on Mount Gerizim and the other half on Mount Ebal, the mountain on which the altar stood; he also placed the tribe of Levi and the priests there. When they had sacrificed and pronounced the curses, and had left them engraved on the altar, they returned to Shiloh. [aa]

By now Joshua was old. He saw that the cities of the Canaanites were not easy to take, not only because they stood in such strong places but because of the strength of the walls themselves, which, built all around the natural strength of the sites the cities stood on, seemed able to drive off any enemy who besieged them and make him despair of taking them. For when the Canaanites learned that the Israelites had come out of Egypt to destroy them, they had spent all that time fortifying their cities. So he gathered the people together in an assembly at Shiloh. When they had come there with great eagerness and haste, he pointed out to them what successes they had already had and what glorious things had been done — things worthy of the God who enabled them to do them, and worthy of the excellence of the laws they followed. He noted also that thirty-one of the kings who had dared to give them battle had been overcome, and that every army, however great, that trusted in its own power and fought them had been utterly destroyed, so that not even any of their descendants remained. As for the cities, some had been taken, but the rest would have to be taken in the course of time by long sieges, both because of the strength of their walls and because of the confidence their inhabitants placed in them. So he thought it reasonable that the tribes that had come with them from beyond the Jordan and had shared their dangers, being their own kin, should now be dismissed and sent home, with thanks for the labors they had shared with them. He also thought it reasonable that they should send one man from every tribe, a man known for outstanding virtue, to measure the land faithfully and report its true size without any falsehood or deceit.

When Joshua had spoken to them in this way, he found that the people approved of his proposal. So he sent men to measure their country, and with them some surveyors, who could not easily fail to get at the truth because of their skill in that art. He also instructed them to assess the part of the land that was most fertile and the part that was not so good. For such is the nature of the land of Canaan that one may see large plains, very fit to bear crops, which compared with other countries might be reckoned extremely fertile, yet compared with the fields around Jericho and those belonging to Jerusalem would seem of no account at all. And although these people have only a very little of this kind of land, and it is for the most part mountainous too, it does not fall behind other countries, because of its exceptional goodness and beauty. For this reason Joshua thought the land should be divided among the tribes by an estimate of its quality rather than by the extent of its measure, since one acre of some kinds of land was often worth a thousand acres of another. The men who were sent, ten in number, traveled all over the land and made their estimate, and in the seventh month they came back to him at the city of Shiloh, where they had set up the tabernacle. [ab]

Then Joshua took Eleazar and the senate, and with them the heads of the tribes, and divided the land among the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh, setting the size of each portion by the size of each tribe. When he had cast lots, Judah received by lot the whole of upper Idumea, reaching as far as Jerusalem, its breadth extending to the Lake of Sodom; within this tribe’s lot were the cities of Ashkelon and Gaza. The lot of Simeon, the second, included the part of Idumea bordering on Egypt and Arabia. The Benjamites’ lot fell so that its length ran from the river Jordan to the sea, but in breadth it was bounded by Jerusalem and Bethel. This lot was the narrowest of all because of the goodness of the land, for it included Jericho and the city of Jerusalem. The tribe of Ephraim received by lot the land that stretched in length from the river Jordan to Gezer, and in breadth from Bethel to where it ended at the Great Plain. The half-tribe of Manasseh had the land from the Jordan to the city of Dor, and its breadth was at Beth-shan, which is now called Scythopolis. After these came Issachar, whose limits in length were Mount Carmel and the river, and in breadth Mount Tabor. The lot of the tribe of Zebulun included the land reaching as far as the Lake of Gennesaret, and the land around Carmel and the sea. The tribe of Asher had the land from Carmel called the Valley — for such it was — and all the part facing Sidon; the city of Arce, which is also called Ecdipus, belonged to their share. The Naphtalites received the eastern parts, as far as the city of Damascus and Upper Galilee, up to Mount Lebanon and the springs of the Jordan, which rise from that mountain — that is, from the part of it whose northern limits border on the city of Arce. The Danites’ lot included all the part of the valley that faces the setting sun, bounded by Ashdod and Dor; they also had all of Jamnia and Gath, from Ekron to the mountain where the tribe of Judah begins. [ac] In this way Joshua divided the six nations that bear the names of the sons of Canaan, with their land, to be possessed by the nine and a half tribes. For Moses had gone before him and had already distributed the land of the Amorites — which itself also took its name from one of the sons of Canaan — to the two and a half tribes, as we have already shown. But the parts around Sidon, and those belonging to the Arkites, the Hamathites and the Arvadites, were not yet properly allotted. [af]

But now Joshua was prevented by his age from carrying out what he intended to do, and those who succeeded him in the government took little care for the public good. So he charged every tribe to leave no remnant of the race of the Canaanites in the land allotted to them; Moses had assured them beforehand, and they could rest fully convinced of it, that their own security and the keeping of their own laws depended wholly on this. He also ordered them to give thirty-eight cities to the Levites, for they had already received ten in the country of the Amorites. Three of these he set apart for those who had killed someone and fled, who were to live there; for he was very careful that nothing Moses had ordained should be neglected. These cities were Hebron, of the tribe of Judah; Shechem, of the tribe of Ephraim; and Kedesh, a place in Upper Galilee, of the tribe of Naphtali. He also distributed among them the rest of the plunder not yet divided, which was very great, so that they had an abundance of wealth, all of them together and each one in particular — gold and silver, clothing and other goods, besides a multitude of cattle too many to count. [ag]

After this was over, he gathered the army together in an assembly and spoke as follows to the tribes that had their settlement beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites — for fifty thousand of them had armed themselves and gone to the war with the others: “The God who is the Father and Master of the Hebrew nation has now given us this land as our possession, and has promised to keep us in the enjoyment of it as our own forever. You, for your part, offered yourselves eagerly to help us on every occasion we needed it, as he commanded. So it is only right, now that all our difficulties are over, that you should be allowed to rest, and that we should no longer impose on your eagerness to help us. Then, if we should need it again, we may readily have it in any future emergency, and not wear you out so much now as to make you slower to help us another time. We thank you, therefore, for the dangers you have faced with us; and we do so not at this time only, but will always feel the same. We will remember our friends and keep in mind what benefits we have had from them: how you put off the enjoyment of your own happiness for our sake, and labored for what we have now, by the goodwill of God, obtained, resolving not to enjoy your own prosperity until you had given us that help. And yet by joining your labor to ours you have gained great wealth, and you will carry home much plunder, with gold and silver, and — what is worth more than all these — our goodwill toward you and a mind ready to repay your kindness to us in whatever case you may wish. For you have left undone nothing that Moses required of you beforehand, nor did you disregard him because he was dead and gone from you, so that nothing lessens the gratitude we owe you. So we send you home joyful to your own inheritances. And we beg you to believe that there is no limit to the close bond between us. Do not imagine, because this river lies between us, that you are of a different race from us and not Hebrews. We are all descendants of Abraham, both we who live here and you who live there; and it is the same God who brought our forefathers and yours into the world. Take care of his worship, and observe most carefully the form of government he has ordained through Moses. For while you continue in those laws, God will show himself merciful and ready to help you too; but if you imitate the other nations and abandon those laws, he will reject your nation.” When Joshua had spoken in this way and had taken leave of them all — those in authority one by one and the whole people together — he himself stayed where he was. But the people escorted those tribes on their way, and not without tears; indeed, they hardly knew how to part from one another.

When the tribe of Reuben, and that of Gad, and the Manassites who went with them had crossed the river, they built an altar on the banks of the Jordan, as a monument for later generations and a sign of their kinship with those who would live on the other side. But when those on the other side heard that the men who had been sent home had built an altar, without hearing with what intention they had built it, they supposed it had been built as an innovation, to bring in foreign gods, and they were not inclined to disbelieve it. Thinking this slanderous report credible — that it had been built for worship — they took up arms as if to take vengeance on those who built the altar, and they were about to cross the river and punish them for overturning the laws of their country. For they did not think it right to consider them on account of their kinship, or the rank of those who had given the occasion, but to consider the will of God and the manner in which he desired to be worshiped. So in their anger these men marched out for war. But Joshua, Eleazar the high priest and the senate restrained them, and persuaded them first to test their intention by words, and only afterward, if they found their intention was evil, to make war on them. So they sent as envoys to them Phinehas the son of Eleazar, and ten others who were held in esteem among the Hebrews, to learn what they had in mind when, after crossing the river, they built an altar on its banks. [ah]

As soon as these envoys had crossed and come to them, and an assembly had gathered, Phinehas stood up and said that the offense they had committed was too grave to be punished by words alone, or by words alone to be put right for the future. Yet, he said, they had not so looked at the gravity of the offense as to resort to arms and battle at once to punish it; because of their kinship, and the likelihood that they might be won back, they had taken this course of sending an embassy to them: “We want to learn the true reasons that moved you to build this altar, so that we may not seem to have been too rash in attacking you with our weapons, if it proves that you made the altar for justifiable reasons, and may then justly punish you, if the accusation proves true. For we can hardly suppose that you, who have known the will of God and have heard the laws he himself has given us, can forget him now that you are separated from us and have gone to that inheritance of yours which you obtained by lot, through the grace of God and the providence he exercises over you; or that you can leave the tabernacle, the ark and the altar of our fathers, bring in foreign gods, and imitate the wicked practices of the Canaanites. But you will be thought to have done no wrong if you repent now and go no further in your madness, but pay due reverence to the laws of your country and keep them in mind. But if you persist in your sins, we will not grudge our pains to preserve our laws: we will cross the Jordan and defend them, and, before them, God, and we will regard you as men no different from the Canaanites, and destroy you as we destroyed them. Do not imagine that because you have crossed the river you have got beyond the reach of God’s power. Everywhere you are in places that belong to him, and it is impossible to escape his power and the punishment he will bring on men by it. If you think your settlement here will hinder your turning to what is good, nothing need prevent us from dividing the land afresh and leaving this old land to be pasture for sheep. But you will do well to return to your duty and leave off these new crimes. We beg you, by your children and wives, do not force us to punish you. So take your measures in this assembly as men whose own safety, and the safety of those dearest to them, is at stake, and believe that it is better for you to be conquered by words than to persist in your purpose and experience deeds and war instead.”

When Phinehas had spoken in this way, the leaders of the assembly and the whole people began to defend themselves against what they were accused of. They said that they would never abandon their kinship with them, nor had they built the altar as an innovation. They acknowledged one and the same God, common to all the Hebrews, and the bronze altar that stood before the tabernacle, on which they would offer their sacrifices. As for the altar they had raised, on account of which they were now suspected, it had not been built for worship, “but to be a sign and a monument of our kinship with you forever, and a needful reminder to us to act wisely and to continue in the laws of our country — not an occasion for breaking them, as you suspect. Let God be our trustworthy witness that this was the reason we built this altar. So we beg you to think better of us, and not to charge us with something that would make any descendant of Abraham well deserve destruction, if they tried to bring in new rites different from our customary practices.” When they had given this answer and Phinehas had commended them for it, he came to Joshua and reported before the people the answer they had received. Joshua was glad that he was under no necessity of drawing up the army, or of leading it to shed blood and make war against men of their own kin, and he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving to God for it. [aj]

After that Joshua dismissed this great assembly of the people and sent them to their own inheritances, while he himself lived at Shechem. In the twentieth year after this, when he was very old, he sent for the most distinguished men of the various cities, with those in authority and the senate, and as many of the common people as could attend. When they had come, he reminded them of all the benefits God had given them, which could not but be very many, since from a lowly state they had been raised to so great a degree of glory and plenty. He urged them to keep God’s goodwill, so gracious toward them, by their piety, through which alone the Deity would remain their friend. It was fitting, he said, that he should leave them this admonition now that he was about to depart this life, and he asked them to keep this exhortation of his in memory. When Joshua had spoken to them in this way, he died, having lived a hundred and ten years. Forty of these he had lived with Moses, learning what would be useful to him afterward, and after Moses’ death he was their commander for twenty-five years. He was a man who lacked neither wisdom nor eloquence in making his intentions plain to the people, but was outstanding in both. He had great courage and greatness of spirit in action and in danger, was very shrewd in securing the people’s peace, and showed great virtue on every proper occasion. He was buried in the city of Timnath-serah, of the tribe of Ephraim. About the same time Eleazar the high priest died, leaving the high priesthood to his son Phinehas. His monument and tomb are in the city of Gibeah. [ak]