Conquest of Canaan

So Y'hoshua ordered the cohanim, "Come up out of the Yarden!"

The cohanim carrying the ark for the covenant of ADONAI came up from the Yarden riverbed, and as soon as the soles of the feet of the cohanim touched dry ground, the water of the Yarden returned to its place and the river overflowed its banks as it had before.

The people came up out of the Yarden on the tenth day of the first month and camped at Gilgal, by the eastern boundary of Yericho.

Those twelve stones which they took out of the Yarden, Y'hoshua piled up at Gilgal.

Then he said to the people of Isra'el, "In the future, when your children ask their fathers what these stones mean,

you are to explain it to them by saying, 'Isra'el came over this Yarden on dry land.

For ADONAI your God dried up the water in the Yarden from in front of you, until you had crossed, just as ADONAI your God did to the Sea of Suf, which he dried up from in front of us, until we had crossed.

From this all the peoples of the earth can know that the hand of ADONAI is strong, and you can fear ADONAI your God forever.'"

When all the kings of the Emori on the west side of the Yarden and all the kings of the Kena'ani near the sea heard how ADONAI had dried up the Yarden River ahead of the people of Isra'el until they had crossed it, their hearts failed them, and they fell into depression because of the people of Isra'el.

It was at that time that ADONAI said to Y'hoshua, "Make yourself knives of flint, and circumcise the people of Isra'el again, a second time.

So Y'hoshua made himself knives of flint and circumcised the people of Isra'el at Giv'at-Ha'Aralot [the hill of foreskins].

The reason Y'hoshua circumcised was that all the people who had left Egypt who were males, all the fighting men, had died in the desert along the way after leaving Egypt.

For although all the people who left Egypt had been circumcised, all those who had been born in the desert on the way as they went on from Egypt had not been circumcised;

because the people of Isra'el walked forty years in the desert until the whole nation, that is, the fighting men who had left Egypt, had died out; because they had not heeded what ADONAI said. ADONAI had sworn that he would not allow them to see the land which ADONAI swore to their ancestors that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

So he raised up their children to take their place, and it was these whom Y'hoshua circumcised; till then they had been uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised while traveling.

When all the nation had been circumcised, every one of them, they stayed where they were in camp until they had healed.

ADONAI said to Y'hoshua, "Today I have rolled off from you the stigma of Egypt." This is why the place has been called Gilgal [rolling] ever since.

The people of Isra'el camped at Gilgal, and they observed Pesach on the fourteenth day of the month, there on the plains of Yericho.

The day after Pesach they ate what the land produced, matzah and roasted ears of grain that day.

The following day, after they had eaten food produced in the land, the man ended. From then on the people of Isra'el no longer had man; instead, that year, they ate the produce of the land of Kena'an.

One day, when Y'hoshua was there by Yericho, he raised his eyes and looked; and in front of him stood a man with his drawn sword in his hand. Y'hoshua went over to him and asked him, "Are you on our side or on the side of our enemies?"

"No," he replied, "but I am the commander of ADONAI's army; I have come just now." Y'hoshua fell down with his face to the ground and worshipped him, then asked, "What does my lord have to say to his servant?"

The commander of ADONAI's army answered Y'hoshua, "Take your sandals off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy." And Y'hoshua did so.

Yericho had completely barricaded its gates against the people of Isra'el - no one left, and no one entered.

ADONAI said to Y'hoshua, "I have handed Yericho over to you, including its king and his warriors.