Joshua 5

⁹and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of you.

¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.

²⁹The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”

⁵the food at his table, the seating of his servants, the service and attire of his attendants, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he presented at the house of the Lord, it took her breath away.

³and tell her that this is what the Lord God says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

²³Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorites from before His people Israel, should you now possess it?

²²And to you, as one who is above your brothers, I give the ridge of land that I took from the Amorites with my sword and bow.”

⁶The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

¹⁶Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.

²⁵But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched it to Moses’ feet. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said.

¹⁰This is My covenant with you and your descendants after you, which you are to keep: Every male among you must be circumcised.

¹¹You are to circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and this will be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.

¹¹And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

¹¹In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.

²⁴Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

²³On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or purchased with his money—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised them, just as God had told him.

²⁴So Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised,

⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness.

¹⁶Now when all the fighting men among the people had died,

⁶⁴Among all these, however, there was not one who had been numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

¹⁴The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years, until that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.

²²not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed?

⁷If only you had known the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.

⁶For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.

²⁶If a man who is not circumcised keeps the requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

¹⁹Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commandments is what counts.

¹⁵For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation.

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

⁹For you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you.

²³not one will ever see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will see it.

¹⁴The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years, until that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’”

³In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

²⁹Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.

³⁰Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

³¹But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.

³⁹And the little ones you said would become captives—your children who on that day did not know good from evil—will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it.

²⁵Three days later, while they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons (Dinah’s brothers Simeon and Levi) took their swords, went into the unsuspecting city, and slaughtered every male.

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?”

¹⁹On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho.

¹⁴“We cannot do such a thing,” they said. “To give our sister to an uncircumcised man would be a disgrace to us.

¹⁴Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

¹⁴“Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and have all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then have the whole assembly stone him.

²⁵“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—

⁶You must keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.

¹In the first month of the second year after Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, the Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai:

²“The Israelites are to observe the Passover at its appointed time.

³Therefore, son of man, pack your bags for exile. In broad daylight, set out from your place and go to another as they watch. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house.

⁶And as they watch, lift your bags to your shoulder and take them out at dusk; cover your face so that you cannot see the land. For I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”

⁷So I did as I was commanded. I brought out my bags for exile by day, and in the evening I dug through the wall by hand. I took my belongings out at dusk, carrying them on my shoulder as they watched.

¹⁴You must not eat any bread or roasted or new grain until the very day you have brought this offering to your God. This is to be a permanent statute for the generations to come, wherever you live.

⁶On the fifteenth day of the same month begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord. For seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

¹⁸In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.

¹⁹For seven days there must be no leaven found in your houses. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreigner or native of the land, must be cut off from the congregation of Israel.

⁶For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord.

⁷Unleavened bread shall be eaten during those seven days. Nothing leavened may be found among you, nor shall leaven be found anywhere within your borders.

³⁵The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land where they could settle; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.

¹⁰And when the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give you—a land with great and splendid cities that you did not build,

¹¹with houses full of every good thing with which you did not fill them, with wells that you did not dig, and with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied,

²⁰You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.

²¹For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

²²A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is passed to the righteous.

¹⁶‘Never again will they hunger, and never will they thirst; nor will the sun beat down upon them, nor any scorching heat.’

¹⁷For the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd. ‘He will lead them to springs of living water,’ and ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”

¹³Therefore this is what the Lord God says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.

¹⁴My servants will shout for joy with a glad heart, but you will cry out with a heavy heart and wail with a broken spirit.

²And Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

²³When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the path and went into a field. So Balaam beat her to return her to the path.

³¹Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand. And Balaam bowed low and fell facedown.

¹⁶When David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.

¹⁷And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the order to count the people? I am the one who has sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? O Lord my God, please let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house, but do not let this plague remain upon Your people.”

³⁰but David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

⁵I lifted up my eyes, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist.

⁴Behold, I have made him a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the peoples.

³Then Abram fell facedown, and God said to him,

²⁰Behold, I am sending an angel before you to protect you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

²¹Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not defy him, for he will not forgive rebellion, since My Name is in him.

¹⁰So I fell at his feet to worship him. But he told me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who rely on the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

¹¹Then I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse. And its rider is called Faithful and True. With righteousness He judges and wages war.

²⁵As Peter was about to enter, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet to worship him.

²⁶But Peter helped him up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”

⁴²For David himself says in the book of Psalms: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand

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

³²‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

³³Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

¹⁸And we ourselves heard this voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.