Joshua 9

⁶Your western border will be the coastline of the Great Sea; this will be your boundary on the west.

¹⁷And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’

²³For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will annihilate them.

¹⁰He continued, “This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that He will surely drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites.

¹⁵until the Lord gives them rest as He has done for you, and your brothers also possess the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you may return to the land of your inheritance and take possession of that which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the east side of the Jordan.”

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.

⁸and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore.

⁹And they marched across the broad expanse of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

¹⁴These are demonic spirits that perform signs and go out to all the kings of the earth, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

²⁶The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One.’

²⁷In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

⁹Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war; rouse the mighty men; let all the men of war advance and attack!

¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’

¹Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

²The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the Lord and against His Anointed One:

²¹Be assured that the wicked will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will escape.

²So Adoni-zedek and his people were greatly alarmed, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities; it was larger than Ai, and all its men were mighty.

¹⁷So the Israelites set out and on the third day arrived at their cities—Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.

¹During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”

²At this, David summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not Israelites, but a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had taken an oath concerning them, but in his zeal for Israel and Judah, Saul had sought to kill them.)

¹Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

²And the Lord said to Joshua, “Behold, I have delivered Jericho into your hand, along with its king and its mighty men of valor.

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.

²And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set up an ambush behind the city.”

¹⁶Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

³⁷And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined.

³⁸Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.

⁸The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light.

²²And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”

³¹Then the servants of Ben-hadad said to him, “Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful. Let us go out to the king of Israel with sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads. Perhaps he will spare your life.”

³²So with sackcloth around their waists and ropes around their heads, they went to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-hadad says, ‘Please spare my life.’” And the king answered, “Is he still alive? He is my brother.”

¹⁷Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

²²But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

⁵For forty years I led you in the wilderness, yet your clothes and sandals did not wear out.

¹³These wineskins were new when we filled them, but look, they are cracked. And these clothes and sandals are worn out from our very long journey.”

²⁵May the bolts of your gate be iron and bronze, and may your strength match your days.”

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.

¹⁴Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did those men come from, and what did they say to you?” “They came from a distant land,” Hezekiah replied, “from Babylon.”

¹¹If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.

¹²But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city.

⁴¹And as for the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of Your name—

⁹“Your servants have come from a very distant land,” they replied, “because of the fame of the Lord your God. For we have heard the reports about Him: all that He did in Egypt,

⁴³Then Joshua returned with all Israel to the camp at Gilgal.

¹⁹No city made peace with the Israelites except the Hivites living in Gibeon; all others were taken in battle.

²and you are not to make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall tear down their altars.’ Yet you have not obeyed My voice. What is this you have done?

¹⁷the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,

⁵²you must drive out before you all the inhabitants of the land, destroy all their carved images and cast idols, and demolish all their high places.

¹⁶However, in the cities of the nations that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes.

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)—

⁵So the palace administrator, the overseer of the city, the elders, and the guardians sent a message to Jehu: “We are your servants, and we will do whatever you say. We will not make anyone king. Do whatever is good in your sight.”

¹¹If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.

¹¹So the elders and inhabitants of our land told us, ‘Take provisions for your journey; go to meet them and say to them: We are your servants. Please make a treaty with us.’

²³Now therefore you are under a curse and will perpetually serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

²⁵he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”

²⁶He also declared: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the servant of Shem.

²⁷On that day he made them woodcutters and water carriers, as they are to this day for the congregation of the Lord and for the altar at the place He would choose.

¹⁵This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

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.

⁵Surely you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you.”

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.

⁴¹And as for the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of Your name—

¹⁶But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power to you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

⁴This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and then at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.

⁴And Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei.

²⁴And Israel put him to the sword and took possession of his land, from the Arnon to the Jabbok—but only up to the border of the Ammonites, because it was fortified.

²⁵Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its villages.

³⁰But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through, for the Lord your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as is the case this day.

⁷¹The Gershomites received the following: From the clan of the half-tribe of Manasseh they were given Golan in Bashan and also Ashtaroth, together with their pasturelands.

⁸“We are your servants,” they said to Joshua. Then Joshua asked them, “Who are you and where have you come from?”

¹⁷In every province and every city, wherever the king’s edict and decree reached, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many of the people of the land themselves became Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.

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.’”

⁹Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts.

¹⁰Take no bag for the road, or second tunic, or sandals, or staff; for the worker is worthy of his provisions.

³“Take nothing for the journey,” He told them, “no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no second tunic.

¹²Take double the silver with you so that you may return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake.

⁴acted deceptively and set out as envoys, carrying on their donkeys worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.

⁵They put worn, patched sandals on their feet and threadbare clothing on their bodies, and their whole supply of bread was dry and moldy.

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

²¹He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who will seek counsel for him before the Lord by the judgment of the Urim. At his command, he and all the Israelites with him—the entire congregation—will go out and come in.”

¹³So Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the Lord, because he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance,

¹⁴and he failed to inquire of the Lord. So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.

¹⁹So David inquired of the Lord, “Should I go up against the Philistines? Will You deliver them into my hand?” “Go up,” replied the Lord, “for I will surely deliver the Philistines into your hand.”

²¹And there by the Ahava Canal I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask Him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

²⁸and Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, served before it.) The Israelites asked, “Should we again go out to battle against our brothers the Benjamites, or should we stop?” The Lord answered, “Fight, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.”

²At this, David summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not Israelites, but a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had taken an oath concerning them, but in his zeal for Israel and Judah, Saul had sought to kill them.)

¹⁹No city made peace with the Israelites except the Hivites living in Gibeon; all others were taken in battle.

¹⁰When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace.

¹¹If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.

²²Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.”

²³So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

⁷At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.

⁸But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring.

³²You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods.

¹⁹Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.

²⁵the men of Kiriath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, 743;

²⁵Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth,

²⁶Mizpeh, Chephirah, Mozah,

⁵So David assembled all Israel, from the River Shihor in Egypt to Lebo-hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim.

⁶David and all Israel went up to Baalah of Judah (that is, Kiriath-jearim) to bring up from there the ark of God the Lord, who is enthroned between the cherubim—the ark that is called by the Name.

²⁹the men of Kiriath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, 743;

³And Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon because it was the location of God’s Tent of Meeting, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness.

⁴Now David had brought the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.

²⁹For the tabernacle of the Lord that Moses had made in the wilderness and the altar of burnt offering were presently at the high place in Gibeon,

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

⁶Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, and do not tell the messenger that your vow was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands?

²It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.

²Do not be quick to speak, and do not be hasty in your heart to utter a word before God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth. So let your words be few.

⁷Now the king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul.

²Keep the king’s command, I say, because of your oath before God.

²and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they will glory.”

²⁰This is how we will treat them: We will let them live, so that no wrath will fall on us because of the oath we swore to them.”

²It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.

²⁵It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly, only later to reconsider his vows.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹²“Now say to this rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, carried off its king and officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.

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,

¹⁰for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching

¹During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”

²At this, David summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not Israelites, but a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had taken an oath concerning them, but in his zeal for Israel and Judah, Saul had sought to kill them.)

¹³He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. But Zedekiah stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹¹your children and wives, and the foreigners in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water—

²⁷On that day he made them woodcutters and water carriers, as they are to this day for the congregation of the Lord and for the altar at the place He would choose.

²³Now therefore you are under a curse and will perpetually serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

¹⁵And Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.

¹⁷Solomon numbered all the foreign men in the land of Israel following the census his father David had conducted, and there were found to be 153,600 in all.

¹⁸Solomon made 70,000 of them porters, 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors.

⁶They went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land; please make a treaty with us.”

¹⁶Three days after they had made the treaty with the Gibeonites, the Israelites learned that they were neighbors, living among them.

⁴¹Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

⁴²When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you.

²⁵When morning came, there was Leah! “What have you done to me?” Jacob said to Laban. “Wasn’t it for Rachel that I served you? Why have you deceived me?”

¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”

¹⁴So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life.

⁹“Your servants have come from a very distant land,” they replied, “because of the fame of the Lord your God. For we have heard the reports about Him: all that He did in Egypt,

¹⁰and all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan—Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth.

²¹They continued, “Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for the whole congregation.” So the leaders kept their promise.

²⁷On that day he made them woodcutters and water carriers, as they are to this day for the congregation of the Lord and for the altar at the place He would choose.

²⁸Nothing that a man sets apart to the Lord from all he owns—whether a man, an animal, or his inherited land—can be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the Lord.

²⁹No person set apart for destruction may be ransomed; he must surely be put to death.

²⁵he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”

²⁶He also declared: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the servant of Shem.

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 when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.

¹⁵This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

¹⁶However, in the cities of the nations that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes.

³¹And I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the Euphrates. For I will deliver the inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

³²You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods.

²⁸Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

⁵⁵But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they will harass you in the land where you settle.

⁵⁶And then I will do to you what I had planned to do to them.”

⁹“Your servants have come from a very distant land,” they replied, “because of the fame of the Lord your God. For we have heard the reports about Him: all that He did in Egypt,

⁶“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.

¹⁴As for me, here I am in your hands; do to me what you think is good and right.

¹⁵“We have sinned,” the Israelites said to the Lord. “Deal with us as You see fit; but please deliver us today!”

⁵“Here he is,” replied King Zedekiah. “He is in your hands, since the king can do nothing to stop you.”

¹⁴David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

¹⁸So Samuel told him everything and did not hide a thing from him. “He is the Lord,” replied Eli. “Let Him do what is good in His eyes.”

⁵Instead, you must seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.