Joshua 24

¹ And Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and calls for the elders of Israel, and for its heads, and for its judges, and for its authorities, and they station themselves before Elohim. ² And Joshua said unto all the people, "Thus said Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, Beyond the River have your fathers dwelt of old - Terah father of Abraham and father of Nachor - and they serve other elohims; ³ and I take your father Abraham from beyond the River, and cause him to go through all the land of Canaan, and multiply his seed, and give to him Isaac. ⁴ And I give to Isaac, Jacob and Esau; and I give to Esau mount Seir, to possess it; and Jacob and his sons have gone down to Egypt. ⁵ And I send Moses and Aaron, and plague Egypt, as I have done in its midst, and afterwards I have brought you out. ⁶ And I bring out your fathers from Egypt, and you go into the sea, and the Egyptians pursue after your fathers, with chariot and with horsemen, to the Red Sea; ⁷ and they cry unto Yahweh, and He sets thick darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brings on them the sea, and covers them, and your eyes see that which I have done in Egypt; and you dwell in a wilderness many days. ⁸ And I bring you in unto the land of the Amorite who is dwelling beyond the Jordan, and they fight with you, and I give them into your hand, and you possess their land, and I destroy them out of your presence. ⁹ And Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, rises and fights against Israel, and sends and calls for Balaam son of Beor, to revile you, ¹⁰ and I have not been willing to hearken to Balaam, and he does greatly bless you, and I deliver you out of his hand. ¹¹ And you pass over the Jordan, and come in unto Jericho, and fight against you do the possessors of Jericho - the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite - and I give them into your hand. ¹² And I send before you the hornet, and it casts them out from your presence - two kings of the Amorite - not by your sword, nor by your bow. ¹³ And I give to you a land for which you have not labored, and cities which you have not built, and you dwell in them; of vineyards and olive-yards which you have not planted you are eating. ¹⁴ And now, fear you Yahweh, and serve Him, in perfection and in truth, and turn aside the elohims which your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve you Yahweh; ¹⁵ and if wrong in your eyes to serve Yahweh - choose for you to-day whom you do serve; - whether the elohims whom your fathers served, which [are] beyond the River, or the elohims of the Amorite in whose land you are dwelling; and I and my house - we serve Yahweh." ¹⁶ And the people answer and say, "Far be it from us to forsake Yahweh, to serve other elohims; ¹⁷ for Yahweh our Elohim [is] He who is bringing us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of servants, and who has done before our eyes these great signs, and does keep us in all the way in which we have gone, and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed; ¹⁸ and Yahweh casts out the whole of the peoples, even the Amorite inhabiting the land, from our presence; we also do serve Yahweh, for He [is] our Elohim." ¹⁹ And Joshua said unto the people, "You are not able to serve Yahweh, for an Elohim most holy He [is]; a zealous El He [is]; He does not bear with your transgression and with your sins. ²⁰ When you forsake Yahweh, and have served elohims of a stranger, then He has turned back and done evil to you, and consumed you, after that He has done good to you." ²¹ And the people said unto Joshua, "No, but Yahweh we do serve." ²² And Joshua said unto the people, "Witnesses you are against yourselves, that you have chosen for you Yahweh to serve Him" (and they say), "Witnesses!". ²³ "and, now, turn aside the elohims of the stranger which [are] in your midst, and incline your heart unto Yahweh, Elohim of Israel." ²⁴ And the people say unto Joshua, "Yahweh our Elohim we serve, and to His voice we hearken." ²⁵ And Joshua makes a covenant with the people on that day, and lays on it a statute and an ordinance, in Shechem. ²⁶ And Joshua writes these words in the Book of the Law of Elohim, and takes a great stone, and raises it up there under the oak which [is] in the sanctuary of Yahweh. ²⁷ And Joshua said unto all the people, "Lo, this stone is against us for a witness, for it has heard all the sayings of Yahweh which He has spoken with us, and it has been against you for a witness, lest you lie against your Elohim." ²⁸ And Joshua sends the people away, each to his inheritance. ²⁹ And it comes to pass, after these things, that Joshua son of Nun, servant of Yahweh, dies, a son of a hundred and ten years, ³⁰ and they bury him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Serah, which [is] in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of the hill of Gaash. ³¹ And Israel serves Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, and who knew all the work of Yahweh which He did to Israel. ³² And the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in the portion of the field which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor father of Shechem, with a hundred kesitah; and they are to the sons of Joseph for an inheritance. ³³ And Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they bury him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim.