Through the Bible – Day 74

₁After Israel had crossed the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua:

₄Joshua chose twelve men; he called them together, ₅and told them:

₈The men followed the instructions that the LORD had given Joshua. They picked up twelve rocks, one for each tribe, and carried them to the camp, where they put them down.

₉Joshua told some other men to set up a monument next to the place where the priests were standing. This monument was also made of twelve large rocks, and it is still there in the middle of the river.

_10-13The army got ready for battle and crossed the Jordan. They marched quickly past the sacred chest and into the desert near Jericho. Forty thousand soldiers from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh led the way, as Moses had ordered.

The priests stayed where they were until the army had followed the orders that the LORD had given Moses and Joshua. Then the army watched as the priests carried the chest the rest of the way across.

_14-18“Joshua,” the LORD said, “tell the priests to come up from the Jordan and bring the chest with them.” So Joshua went over to the priests and told them what the LORD had said. And as soon as the priests carried the chest past the highest place that the flood waters of the Jordan had reached, the river flooded its banks again.

That's how the LORD showed the Israelites that Joshua was their leader. For the rest of Joshua's life, they respected him as they had respected Moses.

₁₉It was the tenth day of the first month of the year when Israel crossed the River Jordan. They set up camp at Gilgal, which was east of the land controlled by Jericho. ₂₀The men who had carried the twelve rocks from the Jordan brought them to Joshua, and they made them into a monument. ₂₁Then Joshua told the people:

₁The Amorite kings west of the River Jordan and the Canaanite kings along the Mediterranean Sea lost their courage and their will to fight, when they heard how the LORD had dried up the River Jordan to let Israel go across.

₂While Israel was camped at Gilgal, the LORD said, “Joshua, make some flint knives and circumcise the rest of the Israelite men and boys.”

₃Joshua made the knives, then circumcised those men and boys at Haaraloth Hill. _4-7This had to be done, because none of Israel's baby boys had been circumcised during the forty years that Israel had wandered through the desert after leaving Egypt.

And why had they wandered for forty years? It was because straight after they left Egypt, the men in the army had disobeyed the LORD. And the LORD had said, “None of you men will ever live to see the land that I promised Israel. It is a land rich with milk and honey, and some day your children will live there, but not before you die here in the desert.”

₈Everyone who had been circumcised needed time to heal, and they stayed in camp.

₉The LORD told Joshua, “It was a disgrace for my people to be slaves in Egypt, but now I have taken away that disgrace.” So the Israelites named the place Gilgal, and it still has that name.

₁₀Israel continued to camp at Gilgal in the desert near Jericho, and on the fourteenth day of the same month, they celebrated Passover.

_11-12The next day, God stopped sending the Israelites manna to eat each morning, and they started eating food grown in the land of Canaan. They ate roasted grain and thin bread made of the barley they had gathered from nearby fields.

₁₃One day, Joshua was near Jericho when he saw a man standing some distance in front of him. The man was holding a sword, so Joshua walked up to him and asked, “Are you on our side or on our enemies' side?”

₁₄“Neither,” he answered. “I am here because I am the commander of the LORD's army.”

Joshua fell to his knees and bowed down to the ground. “I am your servant,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”

₁₅“Take off your sandals,” the commander answered. “This is a holy place.”

So Joshua took off his sandals.

₁Meanwhile, the people of Jericho had been locking the gates in their town wall because they were afraid of the Israelites. No one could go out or come in.

_2-3The LORD said to Joshua:

₆Joshua called the priests together and said, “Take the chest and make seven priests carry trumpets and march ahead of it.”

_7-10Next, he gave the army their orders: “March slowly around Jericho. A few of you will go ahead of the chest to guard it, but most of you will follow it. Don't shout the battle cry or yell or even talk until the day I tell you to. Then let out a shout!”

As soon as Joshua finished giving the orders, the army started marching. One group of soldiers led the way, with seven priests marching behind them and blowing trumpets. Then came the priests carrying the chest, followed by the rest of the soldiers. ₁₁They obeyed Joshua's orders and carried the chest once around the town before returning to camp for the night.

_12-14Early the next morning, Joshua and everyone else started marching around Jericho in the same order as the day before. One group of soldiers was in front, followed by the seven priests with trumpets and the priests who carried the chest. The rest of the army came next. The seven priests blew their trumpets while everyone marched slowly around Jericho and back to camp. They did this once a day for six days.

₁₅On the seventh day, the army got up at daybreak. They marched slowly around Jericho as they had done for the past six days, except on this day they went around seven times. ₁₆Then the priests blew the trumpets, and Joshua yelled:

₂₀The priests blew their trumpets again, and the soldiers shouted as loud as they could. The walls of Jericho fell flat. Then the soldiers rushed up the hill, went straight into the town, and captured it. _21-25They killed everyone, men and women, young and old, everyone except Rahab and the others in her house. They even killed every cow, sheep, and donkey.

Joshua said to the two men who had been spies, “Rahab kept you safe when I sent you to Jericho. We promised to protect her and her family, and we will keep that promise. Now go into her house and bring them out.”

The two men went into Rahab's house and brought her out, along with her father and mother, her brothers, and her other relatives. Rahab and her family had to stay in a place just outside the Israelite army camp. But later they were allowed to live among the Israelites, and her descendants still do.

The Israelites took the silver and gold and the things made of bronze and iron and put them with the rest of the treasure that was kept at the LORD's house. Finally, they set fire to Jericho and everything in it.

₂₆After Jericho was destroyed, Joshua warned the people, “Some day a man will rebuild Jericho, but the LORD will put a curse on him, and the man's eldest son will die when he starts to build the town wall. And by the time he finishes the wall and puts gates in it, all his children will be dead.”

₂₇The LORD helped Joshua in everything he did, and Joshua was famous everywhere in Canaan.

₁It was now two days before Passover and the Festival of Thin Bread. The chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses were secretly planning to have Jesus arrested and put to death. ₂They were saying, “We must not do it during the festival, because the people will riot.”

₃Jesus was eating in Bethany at the home of Simon, who once had leprosy, when a woman came in with a very expensive bottle of sweet-smelling perfume. After breaking it open, she poured the perfume on Jesus' head. ₄This made some of the guests angry, and they complained, “Why such a waste? ₅We could have sold this perfume for more than three hundred silver coins and given the money to the poor!” So they started saying cruel things to the woman.

₆But Jesus said:

₁₀Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve disciples. He went to the chief priests and offered to help them arrest Jesus. ₁₁They were glad to hear this, and they promised to pay him. So Judas started looking for a good chance to betray Jesus.

₁₂It was the first day of the Festival of Thin Bread, and the Passover lambs were being killed. Jesus' disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal?”

₁₃Jesus said to two of the disciples, “Go into the city, where you will meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him, ₁₄and when he goes into a house, say to the owner, ‘Our teacher wants to know if you have a room where he can eat the Passover meal with his disciples.’ ₁₅The owner will take you upstairs and show you a large room furnished and ready for you to use. Prepare the meal there.”

₁₆The two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover meal.

_17-18While Jesus and the twelve disciples were eating together that evening, he said, “The one who will betray me is now eating with me.”

₁₉This made the disciples sad, and one after another they said to Jesus, “Surely you don't mean me!”

₂₀He answered, “It is one of you twelve men who is eating from this dish with me. ₂₁The Son of Man will die, just as the Scriptures say. But it is going to be terrible for the one who betrays me. That man would be better off if he had never been born.”