Joshua 3

¹Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

³⁵Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a solitary place to pray.

³So Abraham got up early the next morning, saddled his donkey, and took along two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had designated.

¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer,

¹While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,

⁵My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you may acknowledge the righteousness of the Lord.’”

¹⁰Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people:

¹¹“Go through the camp and tell the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for within three days you will cross the Jordan to go in and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’”

⁹So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.

¹³When those carrying the ark of the Lord had advanced six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf.

²¹And the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.

³³So they set out on a three-day journey from the mountain of the Lord, with the ark of the covenant of the Lord traveling ahead of them for those three days to seek a resting place for them.

⁸Command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the waters, stand in the Jordan.’”

²⁵he gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord:

⁷In the council of the holy ones, God is greatly feared, and awesome above all who surround Him.

⁵“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

²⁸Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.

²⁹“For our God is a consuming fire.”

¹²And you are to set up a boundary for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful not to go up on the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.

²Even in times past, while Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And the Lord your God said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”

¹⁰“Please, Lord,” Moses replied, “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and tongue.”

⁷Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am the Lord your God.

¹³Get up and consecrate the people, saying, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Among you, O Israel, there are things devoted to destruction. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

⁵“In peace,” he replied. “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

¹⁶Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the aged, gather the children, even those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.

¹⁹For them I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth.

¹⁰Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. They must wash their clothes

¹¹and be prepared by the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

³³So they set out on a three-day journey from the mountain of the Lord, with the ark of the covenant of the Lord traveling ahead of them for those three days to seek a resting place for them.

²In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.

³and commanded the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, you are to set out from your positions and follow it.

¹³One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate, and go out by it. Their King will pass through before them, the Lord as their leader.

¹⁵If You kill this people as one man, the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,

²⁰where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

¹⁴On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they revered him all the days of his life, just as they had revered Moses.

⁵No one shall stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so will I be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

²⁵The Lord highly exalted Solomon in the sight of all Israel and bestowed on him royal majesty such as had not been bestowed on any king in Israel before him.

¹Now Solomon son of David established himself securely over his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him and highly exalted him.

³⁵You have given me Your shield of salvation; Your right hand upholds me, and Your gentleness exalts me.

⁹Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names,

¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

³and commanded the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, you are to set out from your positions and follow it.

¹⁷The priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed over the dry ground, until the entire nation had crossed the Jordan.

⁹Then Hezekiah questioned the priests and Levites about the heaps,

¹⁰and Azariah, the chief priest of the household of Zadok, answered him, “Since the people began to bring their contributions into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and there is plenty left over, because the Lord has blessed His people; this great abundance is what is left over.”

²He appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the house of the Lord.

³To the Levites who taught all Israel and were holy to the Lord, Josiah said: “Put the holy ark in the temple built by Solomon son of David king of Israel. It is not to be carried around on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and His people Israel.

²⁷And Hezekiah ordered that the burnt offering be sacrificed on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord and the trumpets began as well, accompanied by the instruments of David king of Israel.

¹⁵When they had assembled their brothers and consecrated themselves, they went in to cleanse the house of the Lord, according to the command of the king by the words of the Lord.

¹Hear now, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live and may enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

⁸You are not to do as we are doing here today, where everyone does what seems right in his own eyes.

¹When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—

²And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

²With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.

³For it was not by their sword that they took the land; their arm did not bring them victory. It was by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, because You favored them.

³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

²⁶David asked the men who were standing with him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

³¹Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, “Today we know that the Lord is among us, because you have not committed this breach of faith against Him. Consequently, you have delivered the Israelites from the hand of the Lord.”

⁵And the angel told me, “These are the four spirits of heaven, going forth from their station before the Lord of all the earth.

¹A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.

¹⁴So he said, “These are the two anointed ones who are standing beside the Lord of all the earth.”

¹³When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—touch down in the waters of the Jordan, its flowing waters will be cut off and will stand up in a heap.”

¹³Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion, for I will give you horns of iron and hooves of bronze to break to pieces many peoples. Then you will devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.

³and commanded the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, you are to set out from your positions and follow it.

⁴But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between yourselves and the ark. Do not go near it, so that you can see the way to go, since you have never traveled this way before.”

²“Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe,

⁴So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,

⁹Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant stood. And the stones are there to this day.

⁸At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up; like a wall the currents stood firm; the depths congealed in the heart of the sea.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

¹¹Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go ahead of you into the Jordan.

¹⁵Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,

¹⁶the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam, a city in the area of Zarethan, while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

⁷He piles up the waters of the sea; He puts the depths into storehouses.

³The sea observed and fled; the Jordan turned back;

⁴the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.

⁴⁴Our fathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the wilderness. It was constructed exactly as God had directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.

⁴⁵And our fathers who received it brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations God drove out before them. It remained until the time of David,

⁸Arise, O Lord, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength.

³and commanded the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, you are to set out from your positions and follow it.

⁴containing the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. Inside the ark were the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.

²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

²⁶“Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, so that it may remain there as a witness against you.

¹⁵These are the ones who crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks, and they put to flight all those in the valleys, both to the east and to the west.

⁵“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

¹⁹Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

¹³When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—touch down in the waters of the Jordan, its flowing waters will be cut off and will stand up in a heap.”

¹⁸When the priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up out of the Jordan and their feet touched the dry land, the waters of the Jordan returned to their course and overflowed all the banks as before.

¹⁰On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they kept the Passover.

¹¹The day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land.

¹³When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—touch down in the waters of the Jordan, its flowing waters will be cut off and will stand up in a heap.”

¹²Baana son of Ahilud in Taanach, in Megiddo, and in all of Beth-shean next to Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah and on past Jokmeam;

⁴⁶The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.

³The latter five came as allies to the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea).

¹These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan—in the Arabah opposite Suph—between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

³The sea observed and fled; the Jordan turned back;

²⁹But the Israelites had walked through the sea on dry ground, with walls of water on their right and on their left.

²²and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with walls of water on their right and on their left.

⁶He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the waters on foot; there we rejoiced in Him.

⁸He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove the disgrace of His people from the whole earth. For the Lord has spoken.

⁸And Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and struck the waters, which parted to the right and to the left, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

³and command them: ‘Take up for yourselves twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan where the priests were standing, carry them with you, and set them down in the place where you spend the night.’”