Joshua 24

And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shiloh, and called together their elders and their scribes and their judges, and set them before God.

And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: From the beginning your fathers dwelt beyond the River — Tharra the father of Abraham and the father of Nachor — and they served other gods.

And I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him through all the land, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac;

and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave to Esau Mount Seir for his inheritance; but Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt, and became there a great and numerous and mighty nation.

And the Egyptians afflicted them, and the Lord struck Egypt by the things which he did to them; and after these things he brought you out

out of Egypt. And you entered the Red Sea, and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and with horses into the Red Sea.

And we cried out to the Lord, and he put a cloud and darkness between us and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them. And your eyes saw all that the Lord did in the land of Egypt. And you were in the wilderness many days.

And he brought you into the land of the Amorites who dwelt beyond the Jordan; and they drew up in battle against you, and the Lord gave them into your hands, and you took possession of their land and destroyed them from before you.

And Balak son of Sepphor, king of Moab, rose up and drew up in battle against Israel, and sent and called Balaam to curse you.

But the Lord your God was not willing to destroy you; rather he blessed you with a blessing, and delivered you out of their hands, and gave them over.

And you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. And the inhabitants of Jericho fought against you — the Amorite and the Chananite and the Pherezite and the Hivite and the Jebusite and the Hittite and the Gergesite — and the Lord gave them into your hands.

And he sent the hornet before you, and it drove them out from before you — twelve kings of the Amorites — not by your sword nor by your bow.

And he gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you settled in them; and vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant — you eat of them.

And now, fear the Lord and serve him in uprightness and in righteousness; and put away the foreign gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

But if it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve — whether the gods of your fathers who were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord, for he is holy.”

And the people answered and said, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord and serve other gods;

the Lord our God, he is God. He brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, and guarded us on all the way in which we went, and among all the nations through which we passed.

And the Lord drove out the Amorite and all the nations dwelling in the land from before us. So we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

And Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God; and being jealous, he will not forgive your sins and your lawless deeds.

Whenever you forsake the Lord and serve other gods, he will turn and bring evil upon you and consume you, in return for the good he did to you.”

And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.”

And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.”

“And now put away the foreign gods that are among you, and set your heart straight toward the Lord, the God of Israel.”

And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord, and we will listen to his voice.”

And Joshua made a covenant with the people on that day, and gave them a law and an ordinance at Shiloh, before the tabernacle of the God of Israel.

And he wrote these words in a book, the law of God; and he took a great stone and set it up under the terebinth before the Lord.

And Joshua said to the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness among you, for it has heard all the things spoken to it by the Lord, whatever he spoke to us today. And this shall be a witness among you in the last days, whenever you lie to the Lord my God.”

And Joshua sent the people away, and they went each to his own place.

And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged their time with Joshua and who had seen all the works of the Lord, all that he did for Israel.

And it came to pass after those things that Joshua son of Naue, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old.

And they buried him at the borders of his inheritance, at Thamnathasachara in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaas. There, in the tomb in which they buried him, they placed with him the stone knives with which he circumcised the sons of Israel at Galgala, when he brought them out of Egypt, as the Lord commanded them; and they are there to this day.

And the sons of Israel brought up the bones of Joseph out of Egypt and buried them at Sikima, in the portion of the field which Jacob acquired from the Amorites who dwelt in Sikima, for a hundred ewe-lambs; and he gave it to Joseph as a portion.

And it came to pass after these things that Eleazar son of Aaron, the high priest, died, and was buried at Gabaath of Phinees his son, which he gave him in the hill country of Ephraim. In that day the sons of Israel took the ark of God and carried it about among themselves. And Phinees served as priest in place of Eleazar his father until he died, and he was buried at Gabaath, his own. And the sons of Israel departed, each to his own place and to his own city. And the sons of Israel worshipped Astarte and Astaroth and the gods of the nations round about them; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of Eglom the king of Moab, and he ruled over them eighteen years.