Joshua 6

²⁴“The Lord has surely delivered the entire land into our hands,” they said to Joshua. “Indeed, all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of us.”

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.

¹A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the Lord protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.

⁷So the king’s men set out in pursuit of the spies along the road to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as they had gone out, the gate was shut.

²⁴He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you; you will annihilate them.

¹Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. See, I have delivered into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.

²⁴“The Lord has surely delivered the entire land into our hands,” they said to Joshua. “Indeed, all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of us.”

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.

²⁴So their descendants went in and possessed the land; You subdued before them the Canaanites dwelling in the land. You delivered into their hands the kings and peoples of the land, to do with them as they wished.

¹³Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached Him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies?”

¹⁴“Neither,” He replied. “I have now come as Commander of the Lord’s army.” Then Joshua fell facedown in reverence and asked Him, “What does my Lord have to say to His servant?”

⁷Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us.

⁹Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not be afraid of the people of the land, for they will be like bread for us. Their protection has been removed, and the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them!”

²¹For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

²²Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom,

⁷And he told the people, “Advance and march around the city, with the armed troops going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”

¹⁴So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁷You need not fight this battle. Take up your positions, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Go out and face them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you.’”

¹Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out on the earth the seven bowls of God’s wrath.”

¹⁵When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Get up, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.”

¹⁶And he divided the three hundred men into three companies and gave each man a ram’s horn in one hand and a large jar in the other, containing a torch.

²And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and they were given seven trumpets.

⁴³“Go and look toward the sea,” he said to his servant. So the servant went and looked, and he said, “There is nothing there.” Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.”

⁶Then I saw a Lamb who appeared to have been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

⁴The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the flesh. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

⁵We demolish arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

³⁰By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

¹⁹And as the sound of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him in the thunder.

¹⁶After the seventh time around, the priests blew the horns, and Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!

¹⁴When Judah turned and discovered that the battle was both before and behind them, they cried out to the Lord. Then the priests blew the trumpets,

¹⁵and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. And when they raised the cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

⁵When the ark of the covenant of the Lord entered the camp, all the Israelites raised such a great shout that the ground shook.

²When you are about to go into battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army,

³saying to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be alarmed or terrified because of them.

¹Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He approached the high priest

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.

¹⁴Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, in order to carry it.

⁶And he said to the priests, “Take the ark of the covenant and go on ahead of the people.” So they carried the ark of the covenant and went ahead of them.

⁸After Joshua had spoken to the people, seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns before the Lord advanced and blew the horns, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord followed them.

¹³About 40,000 troops armed for battle crossed over before the Lord into the plains of Jericho.

³March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

¹⁴Your wives, your young children, and your livestock may remain in the land that Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan. But all your mighty men of valor must be armed for battle to cross over ahead of your brothers and help them,

²⁰Moses replied, “If you will do this—if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle,

³March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

⁴Have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark. Then on the seventh day, march around the city seven times, while the priests blow the horns.

¹³And the seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns kept marching ahead of the ark of the Lord and blowing the horns. The armed troops went in front of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the horns kept sounding.

²⁵Finally, the divisions of the camp of Dan set out under their standard, serving as the rear guard for all units, with Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai in command.

⁸Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

¹¹Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; come out from it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.

¹²For you will not leave in a hurry nor flee in haste, for the Lord goes before you, and the God of Israel is your rear guard.

²He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the streets.

⁴⁹And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you. But remain in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

¹⁹He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear His voice in the streets.

²³So David inquired of the Lord, who answered, “Do not march straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.

²⁴As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because this will mean that the Lord has gone out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”

¹⁶So this is what the Lord God says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.

⁷Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.

¹Early the next morning Joshua got up and left Shittim with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over.

⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.

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

⁶So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said, “Take up the ark of the covenant and have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark of the Lord.”

⁷And he told the people, “Advance and march around the city, with the armed troops going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”

¹⁰“Have the people sit down,” Jesus said. Now there was plenty of grass in that place, so the men sat down, about five thousand of them.

¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves and the fish, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted.

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.

⁹Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

¹³But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

²⁶And because God helped the Levites who were carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord, they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.

¹¹So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. And the people returned to the camp and spent the night there.

³March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

¹⁵Then on the seventh day, they got up at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same manner. That was the only day they circled the city seven times.

¹⁴⁷I rise before dawn and cry for help; in Your word I have put my hope.

¹⁹We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

¹After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

¹⁵and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. And when they raised the cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

⁵And when there is a long blast of the ram’s horn and you hear its sound, have all the people give a mighty shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and all your people will charge straight into the city.”

²⁰The three companies blew their horns and shattered their jars. Holding the torches in their left hands and the horns in their right hands, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

²¹Each Israelite took his position around the camp, and the entire Midianite army fled, crying out as they ran.

²²The moment they began their shouts and praises, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir who had come against Judah, and they were defeated.

²³The Ammonites and Moabites rose up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction. And when they had finished off the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.

¹⁷For you must devote them to complete destruction—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you,

²⁵In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute justified by her actions when she welcomed the spies and sent them off on another route?

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.

⁷No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began.

¹²The law, however, is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”

¹⁰For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown for His name as you have ministered to the saints and continue to do so.

²¹Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

¹¹Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

¹¹Israel has sinned; they have transgressed My covenant that I commanded them, and they have taken some of what was devoted to destruction. Indeed, they have stolen and lied, and they have put these things with their own possessions.

¹²This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they themselves have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you whatever is devoted to destruction.

¹The Israelites, however, acted unfaithfully regarding the things devoted to destruction. Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of what was set apart. So the anger of the Lord burned against the Israelites.

²⁵“Why have you brought this trouble upon us?” said Joshua. “Today the Lord will bring trouble upon you!” And all Israel stoned him to death. Then they stoned the others and burned their bodies.

¹⁷“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

²⁰Now their fellow Levites were in charge of the treasuries of the house of God and the treasuries of the dedicated things.

⁶The chief priests picked up the pieces of silver and said, “It is unlawful to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.”

⁴¹As Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury, He watched the crowd putting money into it. And many rich people put in large amounts.

¹³As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord.

¹¹and King David dedicated these to the Lord, along with the silver and gold he had carried off from all these nations—from Edom and Moab, and from the Ammonites, Philistines, and Amalekites.

⁵¹So all the work that King Solomon had performed for the house of the Lord was completed. Then Solomon brought in the items his father David had dedicated—the silver, the gold, and the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord.

³⁰By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

⁴The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the flesh. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

⁵We demolish arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

⁵And when there is a long blast of the ram’s horn and you hear its sound, have all the people give a mighty shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and all your people will charge straight into the city.”

⁸O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, blessed is he who repays you as you have done to us.

⁹Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

¹⁸Come down from your glory; sit on parched ground, O daughter dwelling in Dibon, for the destroyer of Moab has come against you; he has destroyed your fortresses.

³Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

³⁹And they captured Debir, its king, and all its villages. They put them to the sword and devoted to destruction everyone in the city, leaving no survivors. Joshua did to Debir and its king as he had done to Hebron and as he had done to Libnah and its king.

²⁴The Gibeonites answered, “Your servants were told clearly that the Lord your God had commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land and wipe out all its inhabitants before you. So we greatly feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we have done this.

²⁵Now we are in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you.”

³⁴At that time we captured all his cities and devoted to destruction the people of every city, including women and children. We left no survivors.

³¹By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies in peace, did not perish with those who were disobedient.

¹⁸He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Seeing that he gave his hand in pledge yet did all these things, he will not escape!’

¹⁹Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘As surely as I live, I will bring down upon his head My oath that he despised and My covenant that he broke.

¹⁷Now the city and everything in it must be devoted to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all those with her in her house will live, because she hid the spies we sent.

⁴who despises the vile but honors those who fear the Lord, who does not revise a costly oath,

¹⁶‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

¹³He took a member of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. Then he carried away the leading men of the land,

⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

²I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

¹²What business of mine is it to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?

²⁴and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And look, God has granted you the lives of all who sail with you.’

¹²remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

²⁸He said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.

²⁸So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolation to this day.

¹⁶And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

⁹He burned down the house of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

⁸Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and grief and famine—and she will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”

¹⁶And you are to gather all its plunder in the middle of the public square, and completely burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. The city must remain a mound of ruins forever, never to be rebuilt.

¹⁹For all the silver and gold and all the articles of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord; they must go into His treasury.”

³¹By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies in peace, did not perish with those who were disobedient.

²⁴and when the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him, “Please show us how to get into the city, and we will treat you kindly.”

²⁵So the man showed them the entrance to the city, and they put the city to the sword but released that man and all his family.

⁵Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,

⁶(But Rahab had taken them up to the roof and hidden them among the stalks of flax that she had laid out there.)

²⁵In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute justified by her actions when she welcomed the spies and sent them off on another route?

²¹And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

³⁴In Ahab’s days, Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt Jericho. At the cost of Abiram his firstborn he laid its foundation, and at the cost of Segub his youngest he set up its gates, according to the word that the Lord had spoken through Joshua son of Nun.

¹³Now there were some itinerant Jewish exorcists who tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those with evil spirits. They would say, “I command you by Jesus, whom Paul proclaims.”

¹⁹And he is to put the woman under oath and say to her, ‘If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband’s authority, may you be immune to this bitter water that brings a curse.

²⁰But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority and have defiled yourself and lain carnally with a man other than your husband’—

⁶³But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to Him, “I charge You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God.”

²⁴Now the men of Israel were in distress that day, for Saul had placed the troops under an oath, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food before evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.” So none of the troops tasted any food.

²⁵Then all the troops entered the forest, and there was honey on the ground.

⁴Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Land of Wickedness, and a people with whom the Lord is indignant forever.

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.

³But the people of Gibeon, having heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,

²⁰For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.”

²⁰and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

¹Now when news of this reached all the kings west of the Jordan—those in the hill country, the foothills, and all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon (the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites)—

¹⁷But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it. So I was delivered from the mouth of the lion.